


Tied to the Memory of You

by firetoflame



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: All The Tropes, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Falling In Love, Family Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-10-18 16:25:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 31,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17584301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firetoflame/pseuds/firetoflame
Summary: Vanessa Woodfield knows exactly who she is, except for when she doesn't. An accident during a late night call tests Charity and Vanessa's relationship in a way they never expected.





	1. Chapter 1

There’s a sour smell in the air and Vanessa can’t help but think it’s the man in the back corner of the pub that’s sloshed his second pint down the front of his trousers. Someone really should cut him off, but if Vanessa’s learned anything in the last however many months, it’s that it’s best to avoid inserting herself into the social happenings inside the pub.

Between Chas and Charity, it’s well taken care of. Besides, it always thrills her to watch Charity get quippy with the customers. If there is anywhere that Charity thrives, it’s in a position of power. The woman probably didn’t know it, but Vanessa always suspected that she would have made a very successful CEO. She’ll never tell her though, just in case Charity has any fine ideas about running off to some big city to boss around the suits and ties.

No. She’ll keep Charity right here with her where she can boss around the kids and the drunkards.

“Oi you, miss your mouth again and you’re gonna be on your arse in the street. Got it?” A flurry of blonde hair whips by her and Vanessa smiles over the rim of her glass.

She’s been nursing a water all evening. It’s her night on call and as much as she’d love for Charity to top it up with something stronger, there are about half a dozen cattle farmers with pregnant heifers in the area and if Vanessa were a betting woman, which she isn’t, she’d guess that the odds of her getting called out tonight are pretty high.

Charity rounds the bar again, shooting dirty looks across the pub. Her dark brows pull together and a flush paints her cheeks. Vanessa has to bite her lip to keep from gawping.

Though she never seems to hide herself well enough or maybe Charity just notices these things the way other people don’t.

“What’re you looking at?” she asks, leaning her elbow on the bar and tilting her head towards Vanessa, batting her eyelashes in that flirty way of hers.

The way she flits between ferocious and flirty makes Vanessa’s heart race.

“Nothing,” she answers. Dating Charity Dingle has been a lesson in patience. Loving Charity Dingle has made her a master of deception. Okay, maybe not a master, but she’s more in control of her feelings now. At least, she thinks no one can tell that she actually wants to scale the bar and then scale her fiancee.

The way Charity’s smile curls makes Vanessa wonder if she can read minds.

“See something you fancy?”

Vanessa shrugs coyly. “Maybe.”

“Oh, maybe, is it? Just a maybe.” The tip of her fingernail traces circles into the back of Vanessa’s hand. It shoots goose-flesh up both her arms. “How ‘bout we sneak off to the back and I’ll show you how maybe feels.”

Vanessa feels the heat pool in her cheeks, knows they’re both flaming red, then feels it sliding down her neck and across her chest. Charity follows it like a tantilizing game of connect the dots.

“So, what d’you say?”

Vanessa opens her mouth, the words caught behind something that might come out as a sigh or a moan or—her phone rings.

Obnoxiously.

In her pocket.

She fumbles to free it, holding it to her ear, blinking as she answers the call in front of a smirking Charity.

“Uh huh,” she answers. “Right. How long now?” Vanessa nods at the onslaught of information. “I’m on my way. I’ll be there soon.” She hangs up the phone and finally lets out that sigh. “I’ve gotta go.”

Charity makes a face, nose wrinkled up in that way that makes Moses and Johnny laugh. “Aw, babe, really? Can’t toss that off on Paddy or Rhona?”

“It’s my shift. You’ll be alright with the boys, won’t you?”

“Oh, sure. I’ll just top their milk up with a bit o’ whiskey before bed. They’ll be out till morning.”

Vanessa arches her brow as Charity leans over the counter towards her. “Not funny.”

“What d’you expect from a woman that owns a bar?” She winks, hooking her finger under Vanessa's chin, teasing a smile out of her. “Besides, I’m the fun one, remember?”

“In bed, maybe,” Vanessa whispers as she closes the distance between them, catching Charity in what starts and ends as a chaste kiss. Any longer and people start whistling. It’s about that time of night and most of the patrons are a couple pints in.

Charity’s eyes are closed when she pulls away but her smile curls deliciously and Vanessa curses the cow that’s dragging her away at this hour. “Cheeky, mare,” Charity whispers back just before someone calls their order across the bar at her.

She turns, hand on her hip. “Oi! I’m having a conversation here.”

Chas intercepts the order and starts pulling a pint. “Try not to piss off the paying costumers, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Charity grumbles. “See you later then, babe. I’ll keep the bed warm.”

Someone at the bar makes a comment and Charity whips a hand towel at them. “Shut up, you. Unless you want to be barred.”

Vanessa gathers her coat and her bag, wiggling her fingers in Charity’s direction as she pushes out the door for what she hopes turns out to be a straightforward call and the quickest ever birth of a calf.

* * *

The drive out takes almost thirty-five minutes and Vanessa is rubbing at her eyes before she even gets there. She doesn’t do silence very well, especially now that her life is filled with Charity and her kids and grandkids. There’s always something going on. And with the Dingles, someone’s always yelling.

Vanessa smiles to herself. She doesn’t know what she and Johnny did without them.

She steps out of her car and trades her trainers for muck-covered boots that she pulls out of the backseat. Then she tosses her bag over her shoulder and greets a greying, wire-haired farmer outside his barn.

“How’s she doing?” Vanessa asks.

“A mite bit better now that you’re here, doc.” The man’s smile is tired, but his eyes shine in the light that spills from the barn. “Paul Burns.” He holds out his hand to her.

Vanessa takes it. His handshake is friendly and firm.

“Well let’s see what we can do about helping her out, yeah?” She hoists her bag up her shoulder again and slips past Paul and into the barn.

In the first pen, she finds her patient. Her name is Daisy and she’s a beautiful thing. White as snow and in distress. Vanessa runs her hands along the side of the animal and drops her bag.

“Hiya, girl.” Inside her bag, she retrieves a long pair of gloves. She’s gonna have to have a feel around in order to assess what’s causing the distress.

As she readies, Paul calls soft noises to the animals in the next pen. There are a few horses whinnying and the muted calls of other cattle.

“Paul? You alright, there?”

“Eh, it’s alright, doc. You just keep at ol’ Daisy there.”

Vanessa gets to work rolling her sleeves, but the horse in the next pen bucks suddenly and knocks against the side of the pen. Something has him spooked.

She stands and rounds the end of the pen. If they can’t get the horse settled, it’ll just upset Daisy more.

As she comes face to face with the giant tawny animal, something collides with her and Vanessa sees spots. They start as yellow dots that ebb out, turning to black splotches. Inky black marks that fill her head with the sound of bees and the taste of iron on her tongue.

* * *

When she comes to, the light is softer than she remembers and she still tastes iron, but a couple good swallows fix that right up.

She cracks an eye open, the task much harder than she expected. Her face feels swollen and heavy like she’s chewed on a hornet and it was a mite bit unhappy with her.

When the shapes in the room finally take form, she recognizes nothing but her family. Tracy jumps out of her chair, tossing herself down on the edge of Vanessa’s bed, her eyes red-rimmed with dark circles beneath them.

Her dad and Megan look about the same.

“Ness. Oh, Ness, you gave us a fright, didn’t you?”

“Where am I?” Vanessa croaks. Her hand comes to her throat and she notices the bandages wrapped around her palm.

“Have some water, love.” Her dad passes her a plastic cup.

She sips at it gratefully.

“You’re in the hospital, Ness. That horse gave you a swift kick, I think. Knocked you right off your feet from the sounds of it.”

“Horse?” she says, trying to piece it together. But there aren’t any pieces there. “Right.”

“And Charity’s in a right state about the whole thing,” Tracy continues. “Thought she was gonna go a couple rounds with the doctor back there.”

“Charity,” Vanessa repeats. A shiver works it’s way up her spine, like the feeling is coming back after being gone for a long time.

“Yes, thought she was gonna strangle Paddy too. Chas only just managed to get him out of her way before she burst in here.”

Vanessa squeezes her eyes shut, wondering why Tracy keeps talking about Charity and why everything in her head feels spacey. Like she’s lost a bunch of files or something.

“Charity Dingle?” she says.

“Well, yes, Charity Dingle. How many fiancees do you have?”

Vanessa feels sick. It climbs up her throat in waves. She doesn’t know if she wants to cry or scream or just smother Tracy with her pillow and go back to sleep.

“Vanessa, darling—”

She holds her hand up and her dad quiets. “I don’t . . . what?”

“Vanessa?” Tracy’s voice is small. “You want to see her, yeah? Charity’s just gone to fetch Johnny, but she’ll be right back and totally chuffed to see you’re awake.”

Vanessa clutches her head with both hands. Everything hurts. From the inside out.

“Ness, what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” she says, her voice pitched. “Oh, yes, let’s take the piss while Vanessa’s all banged up.” She scoffs. “Charity Dingle. Right. Not appreciated, just so you know.”

“Ness, we're not taking the piss. You’re right proper loved up,” Tracy says a little desperately, pointing to her left hand. “You’re engaged!”

Vanessa stares at her hand, flicking her fingers, watching the diamond glitter. So that’s what that was doing there. Engaged. Huh? But to Charity Dingle of all people? That’s a laugh. She doesn’t know whether to smile or knock her sister in the arm. She looks at her, then to her dad and Meghan.

They watch her with the same mild, sympathetic look. Her heart begins to hammer in her throat and when she opens her mouth to speak it comes out in a tired, tiny gasp.

Her fingertips reach up to the pulsing point near her temple. The place wrapped in gauze.

“Vanessa?” her dad says.

Tears well across her eyelids and she tries to blink them back. Beside her the monitors spike to life, everything beeping like a waking beast.

“Ness?” Tracy squeezes her hand. “Calm down. It’s okay.”

“Why can’t I remember?” Her hand trembles against her face. Her heart races.

Then suddenly the door to her room opens and there stands Charity Dingle, holding Johnny on her hip.

Vanessa sobs, the sound wretched, getting caught in the back of her throat. She brings her trembling hand to her lips and the tears finally fall. 

“Vanessa?”

They all say her name. The panic is clear in their voices. In the tight pinch between her dad’s eyes and in the way Megan’s hand wraps a little firmer around her knee and even in the lip Tracy is worrying between her teeth.

Through it all her head spins, finally stopping on the wide hazel eyes of Charity Dingle. A Charity Dingle who resonates concern and fear and confusion. Who holds her son to her like her own child, cradling him in her arms. Then Vanessa’s eyes flicker back to hold Johnny’s and she breaks.

“He’s so big,” she croaks.


	2. Chapter 2

“So, she remembers nothing?” Tracy says.

Charity grips the edge of the window with both hands, her shoulders hunched, taking the strain off her lower back. It’s the first time she’s stopped since Frank called her about the accident. The first time she’s breathed in the cold, stale air of the hospital without wanting to wretch all over the floor. “Well, not nothing. Just, you know, the last year and a bit of us and the kids and life and—”

“—the proposal,” Tracy adds much to Charity’s dismay.

“Yeah, that.”

“Maybe it’s not all gone,” Frank says, trying for some small modicum of hope. “Maybe just the less memorable bits are you know . . . fuzzy or whatnot.”

“Oi, watch it,” Charity mutters, some of her usual spark already fizzled by the stress and strain of the last twenty-four hours. “My proposal was very memorable, thank you very much. Vanessa was right chuffed about it.”

Tracy reaches out and squeezes her hand. “It’ll be alright, yeah.”

Charity pulls away and crosses her arms over her chest. Through the window, she can see Vanessa. She’s cuddled up with Johnny in the hospital bed, still wearing that puke-coloured gown, with tubes and lines and bits and bobs leeching out of her like some dilapidated squid, tying her to poles of medication and fluids and . . . Charity bites her lip, forcing down the swell of emotion.

It’ll do her no good right now.

The last thing anyone needs is for her to break down too.

Vanessa’s already a wreck. A Vanessa who’s just lost a year with Johnny. Who’s stroking her hand over his pale features, trying to memorize what she thinks she’s forgotten.

Charity watches the slight incline of Vanessa’s head. The slow dip as the doctor confesses something to her. Something that makes her eyes tighten in concern or fear or maybe just plain confusion. She pulls Johnny closer and kisses his head.

The doctor turns away and Vanessa swipes at a few stray tears.

Charity wants nothing more than to go to her. To pull her close and hold her. But this Vanessa . . . well, this Vanessa doesn’t remember yesterday, never mind everything else they’ve been through.

The emotion bubbles in Charity’s chest again like an ache she can’t reach. Still, she rubs at it, the spot just below her throat, waiting for the doctor.

“You the family?” he asks as he pushes out the door, drowning in his white lab coat. The boy looks no older than Noah. How could he know a single bloody thing about what’s going on? Charity has half a mind to ask him.

“No, love, we’re just here for the view,” she says instead, head cocked. There it is then. She’s been waiting for the spikes to bristle to life. In the time they’ve been together, Charity has grown to develop a kind of strange fondness for the rest of Vanessa’s family and she doesn’t have the heart to tear away at them, no matter how badly she wants to. The doctor though, he’s on his own.

The young man clears his throat, shoulders back as he faces them. “It looks like she’s suffering from a fairly severe case of amnesia.”

“Severe,” Frank repeats.

“The memory loss is quite extensive, though I do believe she will be able to regain most of those memories.”

“And when will this be?” Charity asks.

“It’s hard to say. Amnesia as a result of head trauma usually resolves over time. How much time is the question here and I wish I could answer that.”

“So it could be weeks,” Tracy says. “Or months?”

The doctor gives a little shrug.

“Or never?” Charity adds.

His face pulls into a tight line. “I won’t lie to you, there are cases—”

“No,” Tracy says. “Not Vanessa. She’ll be right fine just as soon as we get her home.”

“And what’s the treatment then, doc?” Frank asks, clutching Megan’s hand in his. “What can we do?”

“Take her home, reintroduce her to her life, to things that may spark her memory. Slowly. Give the brain time to heal.”

“No more midnight cattle calls,” Charity mutters.

“I would recommend some time off work,” the doctor agrees, “while she recovers from the concussion at the very least. Limit screens for the next week and anything taxing on the eyes. Reading. Writing. Over-stimulation.”

“Well, that doesn’t leave a whole lot to do, does it?” Tracy says.

The doctor nods. “That’s the point. I’ll draw up her discharge paperwork now. Then you can take her home.”

He walks away, leaving them in silence.

“Now what?” Tracy says eventually.

Charity bites her lip. “I don’t know.”

* * *

The decision isn’t an easy one, but in the end, Vanessa agrees to come to the Woolpack. To their bed, even though she regards it and Charity with a kind of trepidation that makes Charity feel horrible about the entire thing.

Tracy’s offered to stay over as well, to make things a little less strange. So she takes the bed with Vanessa and Johnny, who Vanessa’s refused to let go of since Charity brought him to the hospital.

Noah offers his bed up to Charity and she hugs him tight before making up the couch for him.

He groans against her shoulder but doesn’t begrudge her the bit of affection she desperately needs. “It’ll be alright, yeah,” he says.

“I know, babes.”

“Vanessa loves ya.”

She laughs, a breathy kind of sound that hurts more than anything. “I know.”

He gives her a crooked kind of smile when he pulls away, then snags an extra pillow from the closet and falls face first onto the couch.

“Night, babe.”

“Night,” he grunts and Charity drags herself away upstairs.

She pauses by the door, their bedroom door. She can hear Vanessa, whispering under her breath. The sound is rough and panicked, broken up by sobs sucked through puckered lips.

Through the crack in the door, Charity can see Tracy rubbing circles into Vanessa’s back. She looks as helpless as Charity feels.

Inside Noah’s room, Charity stuffs the pillow over her head. She can’t listen to Vanessa cry herself to sleep. That’s the kind of sound that could keep her up for a lifetime.

Morning comes, slower than Charity’s hoped, but fast enough that she feels like she’s hardly slept at all.

It’s barely seven, the sun still resting on the gently sloped curve of the horizon, painting everything in a musky lime hue.

Charity putters in the kitchen, stepping on quiet feet so as not to wake Noah, who snores contentedly on the couch, his long legs kicked over the arm.

When she turns with the full kettle, she swallows a hiss, surprised that she’s managed to hold onto it. Vanessa stands there in one of her oversized jumpers and flannel pyjama pants, looking entirely out of place.

She hugs her elbows to herself. It’s small and pathetic and again Charity has the overwhelming urge to draw her close, but her fingers wrap around the top of the kettle, firm and focused.

“Brew?” she asks.

“Yeah, sure.” Vanessa takes a step towards the table, then stops.

Charity gives her a nod. “Well sit down, yeah.”

Vanessa does. In her usual seat. Though she probably has no idea. It’s just the closest one to where she’s standing.

Charity putters while the water boils, trying not to stare at the way Vanessa studies her and the room, that ever inquisitive eye looking at everything for the first time again. She wonders if she recognizes the little bits of her and Johnny that have worked their way into the Woolpack. Johnny’s sippy cups. The bright yellow dishcloth.

Maybe she does, because she looks down at the table suddenly and licks her lips.

Charity pulls the kettle and pours them each a mug, making Vanessa’s just how she likes it. Weak. She almost laughs.

Then she places the mug in front of her and watches as Vanessa’s hands wrap around it, her fingers interlaced, soaking up the warmth.

“Sleep okay?” Charity asks when she’s seated across from her.

Vanessa shrugs. “Sorta.”

“Well, Tracy had no trouble, if that snoring is anything to go by.”

That gets a smile, the way it would have any other time and Charity thanks the heavens for small miracles.

“Between her and Johnny,” Vanessa starts, then trails off. “Tracy gave me my phone last night. Said the photos might jog my memory.”

“And?”

Vanessa shakes her head. “There were so many.” Her cheeks flush red.

Charity can imagine the shock. Vanessa’s screensaver is the two of them lip-locked for crying out loud. That probably wasn’t the best way to reintroduce her. Maybe she ought to wake up darling little Tracy and have a word.

“So,” Charity says, “even after all that, you really got nothing up there, eh?”

Vanessa’s mouth opens, but it begins to tremble before she can say anything and her hand shoots up to cover her lips. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, love,” Charity begins, reaching out for Vanessa’s hands.

Instinct or fear makes her draw back, just slightly, but Charity sees the hesitation and she stops mid-air, letting her hand fall back to her lap. 

“Maybe a little slower, yeah,” she says to ease the look of panic in Vanessa’s face. It does nothing to ease her own pain. The stupid bit of herself that assumed they could carry on as they always had. That despite the memories—them, together—it would be the same. They had always communicated better through touch. When there were no words, or perhaps just too many words, touch had saved them both a lot of grief. Without that to fall back on, Charity’s not quite sure what to do. “I’ll try to remember,” she promises.

Vanessa nods, another one of those broken smiles tugging at her lips. “How long have I—we . . . Johnny and I—how long have we lived here? With—”

“The circus of Dingles?” Charity shakes her head fondly. “Months now. We’ve got a right proper domestic thing going, you and me. Planned family dinners and everything.”

Vanessa nods. “Right.”

“But we can hold off on those,” Charity says, watching Vanessa’s eyes flick to the calendar tacked to the wall, studying her own handwriting. “For a while.”

“Right,” Vanessa says again. And Charity just hopes that a while doesn’t mean forever.


	3. Chapter 3

They sit in companionable silence for what feels like hours, with Charity studying the fine lines of struggled understanding that cut up Vanessa’s beautiful face. They cross her forehead and wrinkle by her eyes.

All the while, Charity longs to sneak her hand across the table, to feel the softness of Vanessa’s hand in her own. She abandons that idea when Chas makes an appearance, clad in a frilly robe, her hair mussed to one side and a smudge of eyeliner winging her lower lids.

“Who roughed you up?” Charity teases.

“Watch it,” she warns. “Haven’t had my caffeine yet.”

Chas puts a hand on Vanessa’s shoulder and Charity watches as Vanessa stills. It’s her base reaction of course because, in her head, Chas is pretty much a stranger. Pub owner. Pint pourer. Paddy lover. But still just that other woman behind the bar.

Chas doesn’t recoil the way Charity would have thought, instead running her hand back and forth a few times. It makes some weak flurry of jealousy stir to life in her gut. She knows Chas means nothing by it and she takes comfort in Vanessa finding any means of comfort right now, but still, she’s miffed about it.

“Feeling any better, love?” Chas asks.

Vanessa sips at her tea and nods. “Some.”

“Any luck with the . . .” Chas taps her temple, letting her hand fall away when Vanessa shakes her head. “Well, never mind that now. It’ll come. You just focus on getting better.”

“I—” Vanessa pushes her chair back. “I think I’ll pop back upstairs and try to get some rest.”

“If Tracy’s snoring gives you bother, just holler and I’ll come set her straight,” Charity says.

Vanessa ducks her head, but there’s something real in her grin this time and the tightness in Charity’s chest loosens a bit.

“Oh, Johnny . . .”

Charity can hear the question Vanessa isn’t even sure she’s asking. Even something as simple as her own child is a complete muddle in her head.

“He goes to the sitters with Moses in the mornings,” Charity says. “I’ll have Tracy drop them both off. Best keep things as they are, yeah?”

Vanessa nods, letting her fingers run over the back of the couch where Noah still sleeps, oblivious. Her eyes linger on him a moment, then pull away, retreating back like she’s infiltrated where she doesn’t belong.

Charity watches her disappear, listens to the wisp of her flannel pyjamas around her socked feet.

“You’re drooling, babe.”

Charity shoots Chas a dirty look, but folds under the feel of her hands on her shoulders and finally lets her head drop into her hands. Palms to eyes, she rubs, like she might be able to erase the last forty-eight hours if she scrubs hard enough.

“She’ll get there,” Chas whispers against the top of Charity’s head. “Ness is a fighter.”

“But the mind’s a funny thing, innit?”

“Whose? Yours or hers?”

Charity lets her head drop back, looking at Chas’ smile upside down. “I’m serious.”

“I know you are, babe. But fretting over something that you can’t change will only wear you down.”

“So what do I do?”

“You love her like you do every other day. She may not remember it, but this is Ness we’re talking about. You know she loves you to the moon and back again.” Chas turns around when the kettle starts to whistle. “Now, Paddy said she’s welcome to come down to the surgery if she’s feeling up to it.”

“Absolutely not,” Charity says. “This is all his fault.”

“Paddy didn’t kick her in the head.”

“No,” Charity grumbles, “but it was his idea to have these stupid on-call shifts. Greedy little—”

“Watch it,” Chas says, pointing a spoon at Charity. “This isn’t anyone’s fault. Poor spooked animal. That’s all.”

“Well, she’s still not going down to the surgery. Not yet at least.”

“He just thought it might help her to have a look around.”

“Yeah,” Charity sighs. “Alright. Maybe in a few days then.”

Vanessa sleeps most of the day and Charity feels okay with that. The doctor said she needed time to recover from the concussion, and honestly, the Woolpack isn’t exactly a stress-free environment. Even now she can hear Chas yelling instructions from behind the bar from the living room, even with two doors and some plaster between them.

She’s never thought about the chaos that runs their daily lives, but now, with the boys smashing their toy cars across the kitchen floor, Noah hurdling up and down the stairs like some kind of elephant, and Chas threatening to clobber one of the delivery men, Charity doesn’t know how they do it.

“I can’t do it anymore!”

Charity looks up to see Tracy thumping down the stairs, a frown puffing out her pink, glossed lips.

“Do what?”

Tracy slumps down on the couch next to her, closer than she’d like really, but Tracy’s never understood personal space well.

“This caretaker business,” she says, throwing her arms up. “Ness doesn’t remember anything. Everything I say to try and get a laugh or to, you know, to sort her out just makes her worse.”

“Well, don’t look at me,” Charity says. “She can’t remember a bloody minute of the time we’ve spent together.”

“I don’t care. Kiss her or something. Jog her memory.”

“This isn’t a god damn Disney film, Tracy. Do you want me to scare the daylights out of her?”

“I just want her to stop crying all the time. Every time I see her, it looks like we’ve just watched the Titanic.”

Charity bobs her head. Maybe watching some films wasn’t a bad idea.

Tracy flops over and rests her head on Charity’s shoulder. “What do we do?”

“I dunno, kid.”

Tracy shoots up then, that usual perkiness coming back. “Well, I need a drink. Won’t do nothing for Ness, but at least I’ll feel less like shit.”

Charity snorts. “Chas’ll sort you out.”

“You’re not coming?”

“Nah. See you later, babe.”

* * *

“Hey, you.”

“Hi,” Vanessa whispers. She’s got her knees pulled up to her chest, curled in the very center of the bed.

Charity leans against the door, but when she’s not immediately turned away, takes a chance and crosses the room, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “Not overstimulating yourself are you?”

“What? By staring at the wall?”

“I hear it can be very taxing.”

“Well, if listening to Tracy recount my life for the last year doesn’t do me in, then nothing will.”

“Oh, babe, that’s nothing.”

Vanessa’s eyes widen in that oh-don’t-I-know-it way. “How’s Johnny?”

“He’s good. Playing. Noah’s keeping an eye on them.” She tips her head, trying to catch Vanessa’s eyes. They’re the same shade of blue they always are, but there’s something different about them now. Something that’s not quite present. “How are you?”

“As well as can be expected, I suppose.”

“That’s a lie if I ever heard one.”

Vanessa looks at her then, wide and unguarded, and Charity softens at the vulnerability there. But neither says anything. They’ve always been a little bit better without words and maybe they still are.

It goes on like that for a few more days. Until Vanessa’s concussion seems to settle and she starts to venture back into her life.

Then Charity finds her in the living room with the boys one afternoon. She doesn’t know why they’re not at the sitter's but instead spread out on the floor with Vanessa in a mess of drawings and coloured pencils. Tracy comes up behind Charity because she’s become a shadow as of late. And not the good kind. Charity’s about ready to cut her off Peter Pan style.

“You’re supposed to be resting!” Tracy declares, hands on her hips and grocery bags slipping down her wrists.

“I am,” Vanessa insists. “I’m in my pyjamas. And we’re watching cartoons.”

“No screens!”

“It’s been over a week, Trace.”

“Well, what if they bump you in the head or something? You know boys, they’re rough little monsters.”

“I not a monsta!” Johnny shouts, though he barely pulls his eyes away from his paper.

“Course you’re not, love,” Vanessa says, running a hand over his back.

“I a monsta!” Moses decides, jumping to his feet and roaring at them.

“I can’t do anything else,” Vanessa says when Tracy refuses to abandon her less than impressed look. “I can’t bloody well remember enough to be any use to anyone, but I can manage to take care of two small children.”

“No one said you couldn’t, babe.” Charity takes the shopping from Tracy and deposits it on the kitchen counter.

“I am not an invalid!” Vanessa continues, heated colour tinting her cheeks.

“Course not.” Charity can’t help but be pleased with the new turn of events. Angry Vanessa is better than crying Vanessa. It means she’s feeling something other than helpless and lost and maybe that’s the key to getting her memories back.

And frankly, she wants them back. She wants to sleep in her own bed again. To be able to reach out and feel Vanessa, soft and warm, across that divide of pillows.

“Fine,” Tracy huffs, “but I’m staying too.” She plops down on the couch behind Vanessa, arms crossed.

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Oh, don’t I know it,” Tracy says. “You’ve told me that enough times, haven’t you?”

“Tracy,” Vanessa says softly, the spark gone, leaning her head back against the cushion. It’s all Charity can do to pull her eyes away from the long, slender expanse of neck. “I’m sorry.”

Tracy rolls her eyes, but her lips quirk into a smile. “It’s not your fault.”

Charity smirks, comforted by the fact that some things never changed, like Vanessa’s innate need to comfort other people. Even when they were being entirely ridiculous.


	4. Chapter 4

The Woolpack is busy for a lunch hour. At least, Vanessa thinks so.

They’ve crammed themselves into a table near the back—her, Rhona, and Paddy. They’re chatting about work, both of them carrying on like she even knows what’s going on. But as much as she feels left out, there’s still a familiarity there, so it isn’t like she’s completely useless.

She supposes animals don’t really change all that much.

She is surprised to learn that she’s spent a good part of the last year suspended from work, however, and helping Pearl with the admin. As if that’s something she would willingly do.

“And how exactly did that happen again?”

“Oh, you know, the usual. You and Charity were caught up in one of your moments, some little thieves swiped a bottle of ketamine and—” Rhona waves her hand, draining her glass.

“Ketamine?” Vanessa says. “Was everything okay?”

“Eh, not exactly,” Paddy says. “But you know what, it doesn’t matter. Past is in the past.”

“Yeah,” Rhona agrees, “maybe better if you don’t remember that part.”

Vanessa frowns, twisting her glass between her hands.

She watches Charity move behind the bar, the sway of her long, blonde hair as she reaches to pour a pint. The way her navy blazer sits just so on her shoulders. Even the stretch of her lips as Chas whispers something in her ear.

Vanessa blushes a little when Charity looks up and catches her staring. In predictable Charity fashion, she winks, though it’s different from the way she is with the other customers.

Different, Vanessa thinks.

“You do know you’ve seen her naked, right? If you ask nicely, she’ll probably take you to bed,” Rhona says.

Paddy chokes on his drink, shooting beer through his nose. He snatches up a napkin from the table to mop up the mess.

“Rhona,” Vanessa hisses, her cheeks flaming hot now. “I don’t . . . that’s not . . . I’m not even gay,” she says.

Rhona snorts into her cup. “Oh, love, you’re gonna have to give that one up. You may not remember, but the rest of us do. You so swing Charity’s way. Not to mention that you’ve been staring at her arse for the better part of an hour.”

“I’m not sure this is exactly helping,” Paddy says, dabbing at his eyes.

“Go on,” Rhona insists. “Tell her. You’ve walked in on them enough times.”

“Rhona!” Vanessa and Paddy both say.

“Alright, alright. Too soon.”

Vanessa stares at her hands. They tremble against the table. “I have to go,” she says suddenly, jumping to her feet.

“Oi, Ness! I didn’t mean anything by it,” Rhona calls before Paddy starts bickering with her.

Vanessa slips easily through the pub, dodging full-hands and lunch trays. She deposits her glass on the bar top without making eye contact with either Charity or Chas. It’s like everyone in the pub is suddenly privy to her personal affairs and if she looks at any of them she might just die.

“Ness?” Charity says to her as she crosses behind the bar to disappear inside. When her hand reaches the door handle and she slips behind it, it’s like she can breathe for the first time, and she sinks down against the door, blinking back the tears that well along her lower lids.

* * *

“What did you say?” Charity demands, hand on her hip, dishtowel held out like a weapon.

Paddy looks from her to Chas. “Nothing, I swear. It wasn’t me. Tell ‘em, Rhona.”

Rhona gives a nonchalant shrug at Charity’s insistence. “I might have mentioned that the sexual tension in the room was starting to smother people. And that if she just asked, you’d happily show her around the cellar.”

“You trying to get yourself barred?”

“Well, come on, Charity, you must have seen the way the poor girl’s been looking at you.”

“Yeah, a lot of people look. I don’t take ‘em all to bed with me.”

“Well, no. But you could take Vanessa. Might jog some memories if you know what I mean.”

Chas snorts.

“Shut up, you,” Charity tells her.

“I mean, you did convince her of her sexuality once,” Paddy reasons. “Just, you know, pop back into the cellar and make it happen again.”

“How ‘bout we pop down to the cellar together and they dig your body up in about ten years?”

Paddy sits back against the bench, drink to his mouth.

“There’s a good man,” Charity says, lip curled. She throws her dishrag at Chas as she heads inside.

Vanessa’s already upstairs when Charity finds her, pacing in front of the bed, lip pulled between her teeth. She stops when she sees her.

“Rhona and Paddy told me what happened.”

Vanessa looks mortified and Charity wants to laugh. She doesn’t, but she pastes on a kind smile. The one that she saves only for Vanessa and her kids. “Is it really as bad as you imagine?” she asks. “Being engaged to me? Knowing that you want to?”

“I—” Vanessa struggles with the words, fitting her hands into the back pockets of her jeans as she rocks up on her heels. Nervous habits, Charity notes.

“Is it cause it’s me or cause I’m a woman?”

“I’m not,” Vanessa swallows and Charity sees her eyes go straight to her lips. “I’m not . . .”

“Gay? Okay,” Charity whispers. She licks her lips for good measure. She’d taken it for granted last time, outing Vanessa in the pub, in front of her family and half the town. She’d been selfish and jealous and was lucky that Vanessa didn’t just leave her there on the spot, sexuality aside.

Charity sees that now. She knows better now. And she knows that she’ll have to tread lightly here. Whatever the reason, Vanessa had spent a good part of her life denying herself who and what she really wanted before Charity walked into the picture and sorta forced it upon her.

This Vanessa Woodfield still thinks she’s as straight as a board. And as much as Charity would love to take a tumble in the cellar and sort her out, there isn’t enough alcohol in this place to make her follow up that bad idea.

Vanessa turns away and groans. It’s frustrated and angry sounding.

“Look,” Charity says. “There’s no expectations here, yeah. It’s just us. And if you can’t right now, then that’s okay, babe. We’ll tell Rhona and Paddy to sod off.”

“It’s not just that,” she says. “It’s . . . it’s everything. I can’t do this, Charity.”

“Ness, you’re starting to sound crazy.”

“I feel crazy,” she says, pulling at the ends of her hair. “There are pieces here that I can’t sort out. Things that don’t exist,” she gestures between them, “but that very clearly exist!”

Charity watches Vanessa register the look of shock on her face, then recoil in on herself. “I’m sorry.”

“Babe,” Charity says. Vanessa takes a step back, separating them further. “What do you mean you can’t do this?”

“I don’t know.”

The pressure in her chest twists a little deeper, fighting with her heart for space. “What do you need me to do?”

“I can’t stay here anymore. I need space . . . to sort myself out.”

“Ness, I’ll give you whatever you need.”

“Not here,” Vanessa says. She finally looks at Charity, tears in her blue, blue eyes. Blue like the sea at sunset. “It can’t be here. I don’t . . . nothing feels right.”

Charity holds her hand to her chest, certain her heart’s about to lob out of it, but she manages a nod.

Vanessa takes a small step towards her. Then another. “And this,” she says, slipping the ring off her finger.

Charity thinks she might have a stroke if she hasn’t already. “Ness, you don’t have to do that, yeah.”

“Just, for now,” she says. “Until I sort myself out. It’s all . . . it’s too much.”

Charity wraps her hand around the engagement ring, catching the ends of Vanessa’s fingers. It’s the most they’ve touched in days and Charity wants to hang on for dear life. But she lets her fingers slide free. “Yeah, okay. Whatever you need.”

“Charity, I’m—”

“Don’t apologize,” she says. She can’t hear it. If she does, she’ll lose it. She’ll absolutely dissolve into the shivering mess that’s waiting just beneath the surface. Waiting for her exterior to crack enough to escape. “Do what you have to do.”

Vanessa nods.

“Where will you go?”

“Back with dad and Tracy for a bit, I think.”

“And then?”

Vanessa sighs. “I don’t know what comes after, Charity. I don’t even remember what came before.”

* * *

Charity storms into the bar, hoping for something she can sink her teeth into because if she doesn’t find something to displace these feelings onto, she’s going to erupt, and she has no idea what that’ll look like.

“Hey, you okay? Looks like you’re ready to—”

“No, I’m not bloody well okay, Chas. Thanks for asking.”

Charity slams a shot glass onto the counter and fills it. Throws it back before her next breath, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.

“What happened?”

Charity makes a face, partly because of the drink. And partly because Chas’ tone implies that Charity herself has done something to muck things up. She throws back another shot.

“Can you stop doing that and talk to me,” Chas says, catching her arm before a third shot can disappear.

“Oh, no, this one’s on Rhona.” Charity’s gaze shoots across the bar and she decides that’s exactly where she can displace her anger.

Chas chases her as she marches towards the table where Paddy and Rhona are still having a heated discussion.

“You did this,” Charity says, towering over her.

Rhona looks up at her and blinks. “Me?”

“Yeah, you. Oh, it’s okay, Ness,” she mocks. “Go be gay. Like this wasn’t bad enough without you making her question her sexuality in the middle of the pub.”

“As opposed to how you did it the first time?”

“Oh, babe,” Charity says, hands on the table, leaning her weight dangerously towards Rhona, “by that night there was no questioning about it. She just had to accept it.”

“Alright, alright,” Chas says, pulling Charity back. “Break it up, the lot of you. Charity, there are other customers that have orders to fill.”

“Well, tell them to take a number. I’m taking a day.”

“Charity—”

She ignores Chas and walks around the counter, sifting through the bottles for something that isn’t cheap. She wants to get good and drunk and forget about the fact that her fiancee is moving out. She’s not surprised that the universe has dumped this on her. Vanessa Woodfield is the kind of goodness she doesn’t deserve. She’s been spoiled these last months and it looks like karma has finally caught up to her.

But it doesn’t hurt any less.

This is why Charity doesn’t let herself catch feelings for people.

Because all feelings do is make this hurt that much worse when it all falls apart. Stupid thing is that all she’s got are feelings upon feelings for Vanessa. Too many to wash away with a bottle of vodka.

Still, it’s worth a shot.

“Charity!” Chas says, leaning over the counter towards her. “What’s going on?”

“On nothing, you know. Just celebrating.”

“Celebrating what?”

“Oh, let’s see. My new found freedom. The extra space in my bed.”

“Charity—”

There’s a sour taste on her tongue and Charity swallows hard, sniffing a bit. “She’s leaving.”

“Leaving where?”

“Back to Tug Ghyll with Tracy and her dad.”

“Aw, no, Charity. You can’t let her leave.”

Charity wonders if Chas needs a good knock over the head. “Well, I can’t very well make her stay, now can I?”

“Oh, babe, I’m sorry.”

“If you love ‘em, let ‘em go right? Isn’t that how it goes. They’re supposed to come back in the end.”

Chas’ mouth opens, working a few times, then closes on the same breath.

“You know, now would be a good time to lie to me.” Charity takes the bottle and pushes through the door into the house. Right into the middle of another catastrophe.

“You’re leaving!” Noah shouts, beelining down the stairs after Vanessa. She’s worked fast. Already has a bag packed and that obnoxious yellow coat on. Charity wonders how long she’s been thinking about doing this.

Vanessa looks panicked and caged, her eyes blown up like dinner plates. “I—Noah, it’s not . . .”

“Babes,” Charity says to him, trying with all her might to pull the mediator out of the depths of her person where it’s already gone to sulk. Be an adult, she tells herself. You can do this.

“Mom?” he says.

“Let her be, Noah. It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Vanessa mouths again, drowning in all the apologies she’s given lately.

“You’re alright with this?” Noah cries, his angry eyes pinched tight.

The three of them face off in the living room, all the unsaid things piling up. Charity isn’t usually one for unsaid things. If anything, she’s the one who likes to tip the scales, so to say. But she bites her tongue this time. Of course she’s not bloody well alright with it. This is the opposite of alright.

Vanessa turns away from Noah and crosses the room, brushing by her shoulder. She looks up, just once, long enough for Charity to see the tears. “Bye,” she whispers.

Charity can’t even make herself respond.


	5. Chapter 5

“Oi, you, wake up.” Charity blinks to life, the foggy outline of the kitchen coming into view from her drunken perch on the couch. She can’t tell whether it’s early or late by the muted streams of sunlight coming through the window, but Chas’ got her slippers on and is holding out a steaming mug in her direction.

“Morning then, is it?”

“Yeah, babe. Nice of you to join the living again.”

Charity rocks into a seated position, squinting as the room spins, and takes the mug, washing down the stale taste of vodka on the back of her tongue.

Chas picks up the almost empty alcohol bottle. “Thought you were over this going-on-benders thing.”

“Figured one more, you know. Go out with a bang.” Her hand weaves into the tangles of hair matted against her head. Tugs once. Twice. God, she needs a shower. “Time’s it?”

“Time for you to get up and be productive.”

“Sorry, babe. I don’t take orders with a hangover. S’not good for business.”

“Oh, no, no,” Chas says, sitting on the arm of the couch, legs crossed. “You don’t get to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Self-sabotage.”

Charity quirks a brow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, give it up.” Chas’ smile is patient and sympathetic. Charity hates it. “You’re allowed to be sad, love. And hurt. You don’t have to drown your feelings in the cheap stuff.”

“That wasn’t the cheap stuff,” Charity mutters.

“My point,” Chas says, “is that far as I can see it, Ness never gave up on you. Even when you gave her every reason to. So you can’t give up on her now. Besides, Dingles don’t quit. They fight. They get thrown in jail. They break the law. But they don’t quit. ”

“So what d’you suppose I do? Break a couple laws, get myself tossed in jail, and see if Ness notices.”

“No, babe, you be the same, strong woman I know you are. The one who’s walked through fire and who will walk through this too.”

Charity blinks at her. Hard. Maybe she’s in a drunken coma.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“You get kicked in the head too?”

Chas huffs. “This is why I never help you.”

She goes to stand but Charity grabs her hand and squeezes. “Thanks, babe.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Oh, I won’t.”

“Now go shower. You smell like the bottom of a barrel. And take Moses to the sitters.”

Charity sighs as Chas pulls her off the couch. “What’s the point. He might as well just stay with me today. Ain’t got much else going on.”

“Uh, one, you own the other half of this pub. And two, Vanessa is going to be dropping Johnny off at the sitter's today.” She eyes her pointedly. “So, go out there and jog some memories, yeah.”

“Yeah. Yes!” Charity says, on her feet and already heading for the stairs.

“Good. I’ll get Moses ready.”

When Charity comes back downstairs, hair washed and brushed and curling gently down her back, she locks eyes with Noah across the room.

She tries for a smile, but Noah’s having none of it. He snatches up his bag and his toast and storms out of the room. Charity braces herself for the slam. When he pulls the door closed, it’s so much louder than she expects and she wonders if the room actually shakes or if that’s just the hangover.

“Oh, he’s in a mood today,” Debbie says. She’s sat at the table, sipping a brew.

“And why do you think that is?” Charity huffs.

Debbie eyes her over the mug and Charity turns away. The girl’s got so much of her that sometimes Charity is unnerved. “Well, it’s not like I wanted it,” she mutters.

“No, but you’re not his enemy on this one. You both miss her,” Debbie says. “I miss her already and it’s only been a day. So don’t let it linger, yeah. Talk to him.”

Charity leans on the counter, watching Noah through the window. He kicks at the ground as he stalks towards the bus stop. Vanessa was always better at these sorts of things. The Dingles like to stew about things and then just pretend like nothing’s happened. It’s a weakness Charity feels as a person and a mother.

But she’ll just have to do better if she wants back what they’ve lost. And boy does she want it back.

* * *

“Char’ty!” Johnny shrieks, wrestling himself out of Vanessa’s arms as they come up the path to the sitters.

She’s just dropped Moses inside, lingering longer than usual so she’d run into them. She hasn’t done anything like this since the early days of them dating, lingering outside buildings, memorizing Ness’ schedule. And hell if she’ll ever admit it to anyone. Charity Dingle would never do things like that.

But out of the two of them, Ness is perpetually running late and left to her own devices, like she was this morning, Charity’s not surprised to see her looking a little frazzled—recent memory loss aside.

Johnny launches himself at Charity, wrapping around her legs and beaming up at her with that tiny-toothed smile that she’s grown to love.

“Hiya, bud,” she says, hand feathering through the soft tufts of his hair.

“Moze come play now?”

“Yeah, babes, he’s inside. Go on and get him.”

“Kay!” Johnny shouts, pushing inside and rushing off.

Vanessa gives her a polite nod, following Johnny inside long enough to take his muddy wellies off and leave his bag. She looks uncertain as she steps back onto the front stoop, but Johnny and Moses are already chatting up a storm.

“Lots to catch up on, those two,” Charity teases.

Vanessa looks at her, that bright-eyed gaze landing hard for the first time in days and Charity’s left a little breathless because of it. Another thing she’ll never admit.

She swallows hard and shoves a take-away cup at Vanessa. “Coffee?”

Vanessa accepts the drink with a dip of her head and takes a tiny sip. “It’s . . . just right.”

Charity winks. “Well yeah, babe. I should have picked up a few things by now.”

There’s a subtle pink blush along the tops of Vanessa’s cheeks. “Thank you.”

“You going to the surgery?”

“Yeah, Paddy’s got me on light duties.” She groans and wrinkles her nose. “Whatever that means.”

Charity looks away, pushing down the desire to lean down and kiss her. She lets the brisk morning air clear her head. “Mind some company for the walk?”

“Sure,” Vanessa says and they set off down the street. 

Charity’s more than aware of the proximity. Of how close Vanessa is and how easy it would be to just reach down and take her hand. But she doesn’t because, right now, they’re pretty much strangers. “All settled in?” she asks instead.

“Yeah, I guess. Johnny had a rough night. Took forever to get him to sleep.” She smiles a little. “You’re really good with him.”

Charity wrinkles her nose a bit. “I don’t like to brag, but he kind of thinks the world of me.”

Vanessa chuckles and it’s a sound Charity’s missed. Her chest aches over it.

“Thank you for being so good about all this,” Vanessa adds quickly. “I know it can’t be easy and I’m mucking everything up for a lot of people. Tracy’s told me as much—”

“Hey,” Charity says, taking her hand then, tugging Vanessa to a stop. “You tell that sister of yours to keep her big gob shut, or better yet, I will. You just do what you have to do to feel better,” she runs her free hand along Vanessa’s temple, “until everything gets sorted up here.”

There’s a moment of charged energy when Vanessa’s looking up at her just like she used to. Eyes wide and glassy, lips parted. When Charity has to fight the desire to just close the distance between them. Vanessa’s fingers linger in her hand, squeezing a bit before she pulls away.

Vanessa laughs to herself.

“What is it?” Charity wonders, a smile tugging up the side of her face.

“Nothing. It’s just . . . Charity Dingle. I never would have guessed.” There’s a little amusement in her tone, but also a little awe and disbelief.

“Well, you better believe it,” Charity says. “You’ve landed quite the catch here.”

They part ways at the surgery and Charity returns to the pub, feeling something like hope bloom in her chest.

She spends the day helping Chas stock the bar and serves the lunch crowd without complaint.

Around dinner she begs off for a bit, intercepting Noah at the kitchen table before he can escape to his room.

“I saw Vanessa today,” she says quickly, seeing him tense. He’s long and lanky now and has a habit of disappearing before awkward conversations can ensue. So she’s dangled something she knows he wants to hear.

“You did?” His eyes shoot up to hers, then back down to his soup.

“Yes.” She slides into the chair across from him. “This morning when I dropped Moses off at the sitter's.”

“And did you talk to her.”

“Well, ‘course I did. I’m not gonna bloody well ignore her, now am I? That would defeat the purpose of all this memory junk.”

“So, you’re not in a fight?”

“No, love.”

His head bobs. Stops. He looks up at her beneath his blond fringe. “But when she left, I thought maybe it was because you two had a fight. That she didn’t want to stay with us anymore.”

Charity shakes her head slowly. “It wasn’t a fight, babes. She’s confused and she’s hurting.”

“Well, doesn’t she think we want to help her? Didn’t you tell her to stay?”

“I didn’t want her to go, Noah. But I couldn’t make her stay when she can’t remember how much she loves us right now.”

He sits back in his chair, considering that. “But you had a good talk today, yeah?”

“We did. I just don’t want to put any pressure on her to make decisions she’s unsure of right now. When things get better . . . when her memories start to return, she’ll come back.”

“Yeah,” he sighs.

Chas pops in from the bar, looking between them but moving to the kettle without a word.

“Well, the way I see it,” Noah says suddenly, “is you’ll just have to make her fall in love with you all over.”

“What?” Charity says, taken aback by his bluntness.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot—”

“Oh, have you?” Charity says, exchanging a quick glance with Chas who smirks down at the counter.

“I mean, you did it once, yeah. So, do it again.”

“Aw, babes, it’s not that easy.”

“Should be.” He shrugs in that childlike way. When everything just makes sense. “Vanessa loves you proper. So just start at the beginning. When did it start anyway?”

“Locked in a cellar,” Charity mutters.

“Yeah, maybe don’t start there,” Chas says.

“Oh, you reckon?” Charity shakes her head, rolling her eyes dramatically.

“You gotta kiss her,” Noah decides.

“Kisses! Kisses!” Moses shouts from his spot on the carpet, rolling his trucks beneath the couch.

“Anyway, I’m off,” Noah says. “Footie practice.”

And just like that, he’s gone, like he’d never belonged to the conversation in the first place. Chas slips into his empty seat and settles her with a look that’s part serious and partly amused. “He’s not wrong, you know.”

“Oh, Chas, please.”

“Kisses!” Moses shouts again.

Chas grins at him. “I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?”


	6. Chapter 6

It’s been about a week since Vanessa started going back to work. And she’s surprised at how easily she falls back into a routine, one that also now includes the Woolpack at lunch and sometimes after work. She doesn’t know if this is usually what happens, or if Rhona and Paddy are just trying to force her and Charity together, but she can’t really say she minds.

She relishes in the warmth of the pub as she slips beneath Paddy’s arm where he’s held the door open for them. Rhona waves to Chas, letting her know they’ve arrived and goes to get them a table.

Vanessa lingers at the bar like she usually does, and she’s rewarded when Charity walks around the corner, wearing her favourite smile. Vanessa shakes her head. When did she start to have a favourite smile?

“Hey there,” Charity says.

“Hi,” Vanessa returns.

“You in for lunch?”

“Yeah, I’ll—” She glances at the menu for the day.

“Chowder and a sandwich?”

“How did you—” Her lips twist. “I should probably stop asking that.”

“Maybe I should just stop assuming,” Charity adds.

“No, that sounds great. Thanks.”

Charity pours her a drink and slides it across the counter. Their fingers brush and Vanessa’s cheeks heat. She wonders if that’s going to happen every time? If she’s always going to be surprised at how her body responds to a touch or a smile or even when their eyes meet for too long? Charity seems to rather enjoy it all and winks as Vanessa turns away to join Paddy and Rhona at what is quickly becoming their table.

It’s the cozy little corner booth in the back, far enough away for curious eyes to pass over them and where some of Rhona and Paddy’s more embarrassing memories of her from the past year can sink into the shadows, unnoticed. They’ve quite taken to this game of theirs. The let’s remind Vanessa of things that make her choke and spit her beer across the table game.

Rhona waves at someone behind her and Vanessa turns to see Tracy coming over, as bubbly as ever. She bends to kiss Vanessa on the top of her head when she reaches the table.

“What’s that for?”

Tracy shrugs and squeezes in beside Paddy. “Just cause, you know.”

Vanessa rolls her eyes. It’s been one extreme or the other with people. Either she’s coddled and babied like Tracy likes to do, or she’s thrown into the deep end. She’s not sure which she prefers to be honest.

The door opens again and Vanessa feels the breeze slide up the back of her jumper. It makes her shiver and she clenches her fists as her dad comes over.

“Hey Ness,” Frank says, nodding to the rest of the table. “These came for you in the mail. Thought I’d drop them by on the way.”

“What is it?” Vanessa wonders.

“I dunno. But I gotta run.” Frank bends and kisses the top of her head as well. Vanessa’s going to be mortified if people keep doing that.

He lays the magazines on the table and rushes off with a wave. Before she can lay eyes on what he’s left, Tracy gasps and snatches them up.

“And since when is your name Vanessa?”

“Trust me, V.”

“Trace, what is it?” Rhona raises a curious brow, holding her hand out for the pile.

“Oh nothing,” Tracy says, voice pitched in that sing-song thing she likes to use on Johnny. She stuffs the mail further into her bag. “You know, junk. No need to bother with it right now.” She turns, waving down Chas. “I’ll have a pint, please.” Then, reconsidering: “You know what, never mind, I’ll just take lunch to go.”

She starts to rise from the table but Vanessa catches her elbow and her sister plops back down. She levels her with the kind of stare that gets Johnny to babble all sorts of nonsense.

“Trace,” she warns.

“Oi, fine.” Tracy throws the magazines back on the table and Vanessa’s face falls. Perhaps she shouldn’t be too quick to assert her independence when she can’t remember a whole host of things—specifically this. The magazines spread out across the table, sliding around in their see-through plastic bags, each one covered in white dresses and floral arrangements and some version of the word BRIDAL.

“Oh.” The table goes silent, making it all that much worse. Paddy actually averts his eyes, staring at the ceiling instead.

“Don’t worry about it, Ness.” Rhona scoops the magazines off the table and onto the bench beside her, but it’s too late.

A worrisome bubble grows in Vanessa’s stomach.

For the rest of the lunch hour, she worries her lip, fading in and out of the conversation. She’s barely touched her lunch and doesn’t have the heart to make eye contact with anyone. They’ll either look at her like she’s sick or confused and she can’t deal with anymore sympathy right now.

“Maybe you need to get out of here,” Tracy says suddenly, picking at bits of Vanessa’s sandwich. “You know, go out on the town. Take your mind off things.”

Vanessa shakes her head.

“No, no, that’s a great idea!” Rhona insists. “In fact, that’s the best idea you’ve had all day, Trace. Right, Paddy? You can handle closing up the surgery with Pearl, eh?”

“Um . . .”

Vanessa doesn’t miss the wide eyes both Tracy and Rhona shoot at him across the table before he’s tripping over himself to agree.

“That settles it then.” Tracy claps her hands together. “C’mon, Ness. Let’s go find you something to wear!”

* * *

“A gay bar?” Vanessa says as she passes the bouncer the cover for the night. The lights are dimmed inside, but flashes of neon and bare skin are everywhere. A wild, techno beat swells to life and she’s hit by a wave of cheap booze and the sour stench of sweat.

“Well, yeah, V.” Tracy is all but bouncing behind her. “Thought it would, you know, be more in your comfort zone.”

“My comfort zone,” she says, looking around. The Woolpack would be more her comfort zone, but she’s not about to ruin her sister’s good mood. Or their desperate attempt to make her happy.

“There’s a table,” Rhona says, pointing through a mess of grinding bodies, “let’s grab it.” She takes Vanessa’s hand, threads their fingers together and leads her across the bar. Tracy joins them a minute later with shots and drinks.

Vanessa eyes it all warily.

“Oh, c’mon, Ness. Live a little. You’ve been putting too much pressure on yourself these past couple weeks.”

Vanessa concedes and takes a shot, follows it up with some fruity cocktail, and tries not to make eye contact with anyone for too long. When Tracy starts to get overly affectionate and momentarily weepy, stroking Vanessa’s head, she offers to buy the next round, leaving Rhona to babysit that developing mess.

At the bar, the bartender is a good-looking lad with an arm full of tattoos. He grins at Vanessa and she nods, waiting on him to pour the drinks. She turns her head, away from the heavy beat of the music. How she used to do this is her youth all the time, she doesn’t know. How she walked away from it all without going deaf is the bigger mystery.

At the other end of the bar, Vanessa glances at a busty brunette who eyes her up curiously. She turns away quickly, snatching up the glass the bartender sets in front of her, and takes a large gulp of her gin and tonic. Another woman a couple seats over, one with dark eyeliner and pink streaks in her black hair, offers her a crooked smile.

Vanessa doesn’t know whether to run or throw back the rest of her drink first.

It isn’t that she’s never noticed beautiful women before. She’s just spent a lot of time ignoring the fact that she does. Ignoring the flush of her skin or the flutter in her chest.

There is a desire there she’s never let herself explore before.

Apparently, at some point though, she’s completely crossed that invisible line she’d always drawn for herself—crossed it with one, Charity Dingle.

Did that mean she was gay? Or bi?

And why did it take her until her forties to figure it out? Shouldn’t that have been something she’d known as a teenager or young adult? When you were supposed to start exploring those sorts of things?

But, if she’s being honest with herself, she could remember being young and having passing fancies for women. At the time, that’s all she thought they were. Just some passing crush. Some phase. Something that she’d outgrow . . . something—

Maybe those fancies had never mattered anyway. Men. Women. Maybe none of it had mattered until Charity.

When she’d woken up in that hospital room, confused, terrified, and Charity had burst through the door with Johnny on her hip—the look on her face had stuck with Vanessa. It was a look she’d longed for her whole life but never thought she’d find.

Lust . . . lust had come and gone. Ruled a lot of her life. But the way Charity had looked at her that day . . . it was something else. Something she’d been thinking about ever since.

Vanessa thought of herself as a relatively rational person. To know that she’d been—that she was—engaged to Charity Dingle. Well, there must be something substantial between them. Some reason for the thud of her heart and the flush that sweeps through her whenever the woman bloody well looks at her.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

Vanessa blinks, pulling herself out of the twisted head space she’s entered.

“Um—I . . .” She offers the woman an apologetic smile. This one tall and fit, her short hair cropped close to her neck. Her eyes are big and brown and her smile is straight. Vanessa waits. Waits for the stir in her chest. But nothing comes. Nothing—

It’s all wrong. The eyes. The hair. It’s not the same. It’s not . . . she doesn’t know what she wants. And truth be told, none of it makes her heart flutter, it just makes her nervous. Makes her stomach ache and tense with uncertainty. 

And she doesn’t know why?

Why it feels wrong to be at the bar.

Why it feels wrong for her gaze to drift or linger or—

She turns away from the bar and the woman and sets her sights back on the table with Tracy and Rhona. She crosses the bar almost at a run and throws herself down beside her sister.

“V, you okay?” Tracy says with a giggle.

“You look about ready to jump out of your skin,” Rhona says. “It’s just drinks, Ness. We’re not here to set you up with some new lady friend. Contrary to popular belief, I do think you and Charity are rather good together.”

“You . . . you do?”

“Don’t tell her I said so,” Rhona says.

“C’mon,” Tracy says finally, a strange look in her eyes. “Finish your drink. Let’s go back to the Woolpack. Little stuffy in here, innit?”

Vanessa smiles at her sister, taking her hand and pulling her close.

* * *

If there’s one thing Charity hates about running the pub, it’s dealing with the bins at the end of the night. But considering she’s been begging off shifts all the time, running between here and Tug Ghyll just for the chance to see Vanessa, she owes Chas one. Or a lot.

The night is chilly and she can feel it creep beneath the fabric of her sweater. She kicks the last bin into place on the curb and turns back towards the pub. When she does, she grabs at her chest, heat flooding through her. “Almost gave me a heart attack, yeah.”

Vanessa shrugs, standing there on the stoop in her oversized coat, a sleek dress hugging her curves beneath that.

Charity dusts her hands on her pants, giving Vanessa a playful up and down. “You look real nice, Ness.”

Vanessa wrinkles her nose, that look she gets when she’s having trouble taking compliments. “Thanks.”

“How was your night? Rhona and Tracy said they were taking you out on the town.” She’d almost wanted to throttle them both when she first found out, but Tracy told her what happened at lunch. She also promised to watch Vanessa like a hawk. Charity glances down at her watch. It was barely after eleven. A little early for a night out, she thinks. “Did they manage to lift your spirits? Any cute girls catch your fancy?”

She can’t help herself. Is she jealous? Oh yeah. Vanessa, at a bar, dressed like that . . . she’s not gonna lie. If it hadn’t been for Rhona’s play by play texts, she probably would have ditched Chas and driven out there to meet them. She already knows Vanessa didn’t want to stay, but she can’t help tease her anyway.

In an instant, Charity watches the carefully concocted pretence on Vanessa’s face shatter and her heart beats a little faster for her. She closes the distance between them. On the stoop, Vanessa’s almost the same height as her. Almost.

“Hey, what’s going on? Ness?” She catches the edge of her jacket and tugs on it. “Vanessa, talk to me.”

Vanessa groans, pulling away and leaning up against the brick wall. Beneath the shoddy flickering light, Charity thinks she’s never looked more beautiful.

“Hey,” she whispers, taking a step closer. On the stoop, she’s taller again and she has to bend a little to get a good look at her.

Vanessa’s throat works up and down. Tears well up in her eyes.

“What is it?”

“S’just, the entire town has a better handle on my sexuality than I do.” She sobs. “And it feels like there’s all this pressure to fit back into what we were. But I don’t remember! I wish I did. I wish I could go back to that day and never take the call.” She’s crying now. “But I can’t, Charity. I can’t!”

Charity grabs her and pulls her close. Vanessa fights her, but only for a second. Only for a split measure of a moment before tucking herself around Charity, fitting the way they have a thousand times before.

She lets her cry. Lets her have the breakdown she probably deserved the first time around. And the one she deserves this time too.

She rubs slow circles into her back and eventually Vanessa’s shoulders stop shaking. When she pulls away, her eyes are brighter for it. “Charity—”

“It’s okay, Ness. You don’t have to.”

“No, it’s . . . I did wonder,” she begins, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeves. “When I found out that they’d dragged me to a gay bar, I honestly wondered if I would feel anything. If there would be stirrings of something familiar . . . but there wasn’t.”

“Oh . . .”

“It just feels . . . I don’t know—”

“Hey, babe,” Charity says, holding her by the shoulders, “you don’t need labels. You didn’t before and you don’t now.”

“I know that.” Vanessa sighs. “What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t feel anything for those other women, not the way I do when I’m around you.”

“Oh,” Charity says, her current train of thought derailed a bit. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” Vanessa says, answering like she’s just decided something for herself.

“Well, you know, it’s not a cellar,” Charity whispers, “but taking out the bins is probably just as romantic.” She leans towards her and Vanessa’s breath leaves her in a misty puff. Charity holds her face, thumb brushing over her cheek. She can tell Vanessa’s nervous. But that’s okay. Charity had to make the first move last time too.

She kisses her for the first time in weeks and, sure as hell, Charity makes it count. It might not bring her memories flooding back, but Charity’s gonna make sure it’s enough to build a new memory.

When she pulls away, Vanessa’s eyes flicker open slowly. Her chest heaves. Once. Twice. And the corner of her mouth twitches. “So,” she asks, swallowing, “was it much the same as our first kiss?”

“Well,” Charity says, remembering herself. “You were wearing a cape and a mask. Quite the little superhero. And you were a little drunk and pretty mouthy.” She pushes Vanessa’s hair back behind her ear. “But yeah, felt just about the same.”

Vanessa licks her lips. “Wish I could remember that.”

“Me too, babe. But this one should do for a new memory, I’d think.”

“Maybe we should do it again then.” Vanessa’s eyes flicker from Charity’s eyes to her lips. “Just to make sure the memory sticks.”

Vanessa giggles as Charity grabs her coat and pulls her closer, letting their bodies press together deliciously. “Can’t get enough of me, can you?” Charity teases. “That happened the first time too.”

Vanessa shakes her head, foreheads pressed together. “Shut up, you.”


	7. Chapter 7

When Vanessa makes her way back into the pub, seeking out Rhona and Tracy who’ve taken refuge at a table with a couple pints, she’s flushed from head to toe. Her skin is chilled from the night, but her insides are warmed with something entirely different. Something she can’t even really explain.

When she hears the door open, she glances over her shoulder to see Charity make her way back to the bar. She shoots Vanessa a flirty wink and the fire in her veins spreads like a flame upon gas, nothing and then all at once.

“Did she sort you out then?”

Vanessa turns around, heart pumping, to face a grinning Rhona. “Sort me out?”

Tracy snorts into her glass.

“Oh, Ness, please,” Rhona says. “You’ve practically swapped lipsticks with her.”

Vanessa’s hand shoots up to her lips, fingertips brushing over the skin there, giving it all away. She plunks down in the seat next to Tracy, delightfully dizzy. “Maybe a little,” she whispers.

“Well, that’s good, innit,” Tracy says. There’s a squeal in her voice and Rhona snickers as she hushes her.

Vanessa laughs too, at the absurdity of the moment, at the look of utter delight on Tracy’s drunk face. Maybe even at herself a little. At how desperately she wants to march back to the bar and ask Charity to do it again. At how ridiculous she feels about those thoughts and at how thrilled she is for the next time.

“Good,” Tracy whispers behind her hand in an obnoxiously loud voice.

“C’mon, you,” Vanessa says, pushing the pint away from Tracy. “Let’s get you home.”

“Aw, no.”

“Yep, c’mon. Time for bed,” Vanessa says, standing and taking Tracy by the arm. Rhona grabs her other arm, leading her to the door.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing right now,” Rhona says over Tracy’s head.

Vanessa’s brow lifts.

“Using your drunk sister to avoid talking about what just happened between you and Charity behind the bar.”

“And who says I’m going to tell you about it?”

Rhona’s mouth falls open, faux hurt. “And after all the things I’ve done for you.”

“Aw, I love you guys,” Tracy sighs, stringing her arms around their necks, pulling them closer.

The night air is just as brisk as it was ten minutes ago, but it does wonders to clear Vanessa’s head. On the other hand, it does little to sober Tracy or tame her giddiness, so they spend half the time dragging her back to Tug Ghyll.

“Oh, this is where we live!” Tracy shouts as they come up the path to the house and Rhona slams her hand over Tracy’s mouth.

“Tracy,” she says. They stop in front of the door and Rhona grabs Tracy’s jacket, giving it a shake to get her attention. “Trace, listen to me. You are going to go inside and be very, very quiet. Right?”

“Shhh,” Tracy whispers.

“Good. Remember Johnny’s sleeping, yeah?”

“Little Johnny,” she whispers, her voice turning into a soft whine. “I love him.”

They open the door, letting Tracy wander inside. She slides down onto the stairs and begins pulling at her boots, kicking them off into the wall.

Vanessa winces at the thump.

“Think she’ll be okay?” Rhona asks.

“Oh, fine, if I get her up to bed soon. After giddy Tracy comes weepy Tracy.”

“And what comes after giddy Vanessa?”

Vanessa’s mouth opens and closes at the look on Rhona’s face.

“I saw you when you came back inside.” She smirks. “Because, unlike your sister, I can hold my alcohol. And you, my friend, were completely dazed by whatever happened between you and Charity.”

Vanessa hugs her arms around herself, dancing in the chill. Denying it is useless, but it’s . . . “Just a kiss,” she says. “That’s all it was.”

“And was it, you know, something you wanted?”

“Course I wanted it,” Vanessa says. She sort of feels like she’s a teenager again. Embarrassed and excited all at once. “Wouldn’t have kissed her back if I didn’t.”

“So, how d’you feel now? About it? Not running for the hills, are you? Cause that’s not what we intended at all.”

“No . . . I dunno. I mean, I suppose I know how I feel about it right now, but I dunno how I’m supposed to feel kissing my fiancee. It feels new and . . . nice. Really nice,” she adds at Rhona’s encouraging smile. “But also familiar in a way that doesn’t make sense seeing as I don’t remember us from before.” She can feel the dip between her brows as they draw together.

Rhona catches up both her hands. “Well, then don’t worry about how you’re supposed to feel. Just enjoy how you do feel when you’re around Charity, yeah?” She hesitates. “I mean, you were happy tonight, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, I was.”

“Right, good. Then that’s all I want for you, Ness. That’s all anyone wants for you.”

She nods, cheeks pulled back in a smile. She wants to be happy too. But more than that, she wants her life back. The one she’s built and shared with Charity. She wants the time she’s missing with them all back. She doesn’t want to waste it exploring and discovering anymore. She just wants to know.

Something inside the house crashes. It sounds like Johnny’s toy chest.

“That’ll be Tracy,” Vanessa sighs. “I better go.”

She gives Rhona a quick hug on the stoop and wishes her goodnight. And before she goes to sleep, drawing the covers close, she sends a goodnight text to Charity. It’s the first since the accident. But she knows it won’t be the last. Of that she’s sure.

* * *It’s two days before Charity sees her again.

Paddy and Vanessa had taken a couple of days to attend some sort of vet thing in the city and Charity had spent the time in the pub, being grilled by Tracy and Rhona about what happened the other night. Charity kind of wants to know herself. Vanessa had been texting her on and off since, but had deliberately avoided mentioning the kiss. She doesn’t want to push her. Doesn’t want to force Vanessa into anything she’s not ready for, but damn if she’s not dying to see her again.

She gets her chance that afternoon. She spots the bright yellow jacket first, heading by the window, and heads to the back door of the pub, leaning against the door frame.

“Hey you,” she calls.

Vanessa looks over, a smile spreading across her face.

“What’cha doing?”

“Just walking,” she says.

“Well, come in, you’ll catch your death out there.”

Vanessa stops, then turns, wandering over slowly. “I’m lying,” she says. “I wasn’t just walking. I wanted to see you. I sorta . . .”

“You missed me, did you?”

“I . . .” She grins a bit, that shy half-smile, those doting blue eyes. Her lips twist the way they do when she’s unsure. When Charity usually steps in. “Yeah, I guess so. It’s strange, or not strange . . . I don’t remember everything, but I . . . I feel better, happier, when I’m around you.”

“Well, for the record, babe, I missed you too.” She cocks her head. “Come inside, I’ll get you a drink.”

Vanessa hesitates and Charity rolls her eyes. “It’s only a drink, babe. And if it makes you feel better, I’ll even charge you for it.”

* * *

That night Vanessa wakes up from a kind of frenzied dream, heart thumping and an ache between her thighs. Uncomfortable in a way she isn’t used to. It’s been . . . well, she doesn’t know exactly how long, because she can’t very well remember, but she lets her hand trail down her stomach and beneath the waistband of her pyjamas.

Her breath is slow, her senses aware of every tight sigh and puff of air. She’s alone in her bedroom, but surrounded by people in Tug Ghyll. People she prefers not to explore her newfound, or er . . . re-found sexual desires around.

It’s not the first time she’s come to thoughts of a woman, but it is the first time her thoughts have had a defined face and voice. It’s the curves of Charity Dingle. The scads of curly, blonde hair. That smile—

She pulls the blanket up to her face, hand bunched by her mouth as her fingers dip into familiar wetness, stroking until the ache becomes a delicious, pulsing pleasure.

Vanessa gasps and comes. Hard.

It only takes a few minutes, but it leaves her shaking and spent. When her heart slows and the weight in her limbs lifts, Vanessa rolls over and groans into her pillow. She hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Charity since that night behind the pub, when her hands held her face and her lips brushed against hers with a softness that could make her come undone. Over and over again.

* * *

Vanessa marches into the pub the next afternoon. She’s skipped lunch, knowing the pub would be far less crowded once the regulars all went back to work.

Charity looks surprised and a little relieved to see her.

Vanessa wastes no time with shy smiles or giving into the nerves that are rolling around inside her gut, battering at the underside of her ribs. She climbs onto a stool in front of the bar, where Charity is drying glasses, lining them up on the counter.

“So what happened after our first kiss?” Vanessa demands to know.

“Hello to you too,” Charity says, her lips twisted into a smirk. “Can I get you a drink?”

“Never mind that now,” Vanessa says. She’s squinting again, like it might be enough to jog her memories of them both.

“Everything okay?” Charity asks, leaning her elbows against the counter.

“Charity, please,” Vanessa whispers, staring at her hands, wrapped around the bar top, so tight her fingertips blanch. “I’m just trying to get things straight in my head. Tracy’s been helping, but there’s a lot she doesn’t know about . . . us.”

“Right,” Charity says, indulging her. “Well, it was touch and go for a bit, after our kiss in the cellar, but basically I promised to rock your world if you’d let me. You did. And I’ve been rocking it ever since.”

Vanessa licks her lips.

“Did that answer your question?”

“Yes,” Vanessa says, her hair falling around her face is loose twists. She swats it away. “And no. What I mean is . . . when was the first time, you know . . . that we—”

“Had sex?” Charity whispers.

Vanessa glances around. Of the few people left in the pub, none of them are paying attention, but Charity looks like she’s having the best day of her life. She drys off another glass, fills it with a rich amber drink, and takes a long sip.

“It was the day after our first kiss,” she tells Vanessa. “Spent the night in the cellar, asleep mind you. When it was unlocked in the morning, you tried to make a quick escape, got caught, made some incredibly pathetic excuses, and then ran away.”

“That doesn’t sound—”

“I wasn’t done.” Charity leans towards her, fingers drumming an unsteady rhythm against Vanessa’s wrist. Or maybe that’s just her heart beat. “You came back to the pub later, to remind me that our little tongue twister was a, what did you say? Monumental mistake? And that it wouldn’t be happening again.”

“So . . . I left?”

“No, I kissed you again and asked if you wanted to come upstairs and find out what the best cure for a hangover was.”

Vanessa’s jaw fell. She could feel it. Tried to stop it. But didn’t.

“Does that shock you? You look a little scandalized.”

“No, I just,” Vanessa rests her hands on her own cheeks, feeling the fire there, “I can’t believe that I was that easy.”

“Well, give me some credit, babe. I can be very persuasive.” Charity grins in a way that makes Vanessa’s insides twist. “And just so you know . . . you really, really enjoyed yourself.”

* * *

For days Vanessa’s unable to get thoughts of Charity out of her head. Charity and images of the two of them doing the sorts of things that she probably shouldn’t think about while she’s in the company of other people.

She lets her thoughts wander in other ways, however. Still about Charity, though less about things that go on in the bedroom.

In all honesty, Charity Dingle is something she never expected. She’s funny and witty and smart. And beneath that tough Dingle exterior is a kindness and genuine warmth that Vanessa had never imagined. Perhaps it’s been developed and uncovered during these months they’ve spent together—months she can’t recall—but Vanessa is still shocked to think that Charity Dingle, Emmerdale’s sassy pub owner, is someone that makes her heart flutter and her mind buzz with dizziness.

And the fact that she’s the one privy to these softer, more vulnerable sides of Charity makes her totally swoon if she’s admitting to the secrets that have been stirring these past weeks.

She might have forgotten just about everything, but there’s an energy with Charity that is familiar somehow. A closeness that makes her happier to be a part of. And it’s clear that Johnny’s completely smitten with them all. And she likes being around the kids. Moses and Noah and Debbie and the others. She likes belonging to them in this way.

“You look like you’re thinking far too hard about something,” Charity whispers across the bar.

Vanessa’s in her favourite seat, nursing an almost empty glass. “Wanna top me up?”

Charity looks at her pointedly and Vanessa can hear the joke she’s walked right into. “Don’t say it,” she warns and Charity laughs.

“You sure you want another?”

“I’m not driving,” Vanessa says.

“Not on call?”

Vanessa makes a face. “Paddy won’t let me yet.”

“Well, he gets it right occasionally.”

“I don’t need to be babysat,” Vanessa says, sitting a little straighter in her chair. “I am more than capable of doing my job.”

“I know, babe. I just hate to think about what could happen. You’re so tiny and cows are, you know, big.”

“Eloquent as always,” Vanessa says, rolling her eyes as Charity slides a new pint in front of her.

She winks. “I aim to please.”

An hour later, Vanessa is having trouble getting out of her seat. Suddenly the ground’s awfully far away and there’s all these bars on the stool that she’s somehow wrapped her legs around.

“Come on, tipsy you. I told you to slow down about two pints ago.”

Vanessa looks up, at Charity, who’s suddenly beside her, a hand pressing into the space between her shoulder blades. Vanessa presses against the hand, but sticks her nose up. “I’m completely fine.”

“Tell that to the hangover you’re going to have in the morning.”

“Psssh,” Vanessa says.

Charity hooks her hand under Vanessa's arm. “C’mon, I’ll take you home.”

“Say that to all the girls, do you?” Vanessa says, finally managing to get her legs untangled. She stumbles off the chair and Charity goes with her, scooping her arm around Vanessa’s waist, catching the bar with her other hand.

“You’re just about sloshed, aren’t ya?” Charity looks around and Vanessa can’t help but think she’s calculating something.

Vanessa goes to take a step, but there’s a tug on her jumper and suddenly she’s being steered towards the door behind the bar, and into the living room of the pub.

“Sit,” Charity instructs and Vanessa does, just about missing the couch. Charity sits down beside her. She laughs, pushing back the wave of hair that’s caught in Vanessa’s eyes. “I think I might just be bad for your health, babe. Look at you.”

“No,” Vanessa sighs. “You’re good for it. Very good.”

“You’re just saying that so I forgive your tab,” Charity teases.

Vanessa’s hand fingers the buttons at the bottom of Charity’s silky, black blouse. There’s a dip at the neckline that’s particularly appealing. Her fingers trace up the buttons, hooking around the fabric.

“And what do you think you’re doing?” Charity whispers, leaning close enough for Vanessa to feel the heat of her breath.

It turns circles inside her and Vanessa sinks back against the couch cushions, pleased when Charity follows her. Their lips dance, dangerously close, and fire winds its way through her core. She sinks her hands into the long tendrils of hair, fingers teased between blonde curls. She cups the soft skin at the back of Charity’s neck, groaning when their lips finally connect, tongues twisting and tasting.

Charity’s fingers whisper up beneath her jumper, fingers brushing the familiar pucker of skin where Vanessa was stabbed. That tiny little reminder of the trauma they’d walked through and survived.

Her stomach jumps and her hand slams down over Charity’s. “I—”

“It’s okay,” Charity breathes against her lips.

Vanessa’s brows pucker. “Tracy told me about it,” she whispers. “The stabbing. ‘Bout how you saved Johnny.”

Charity’s fingers trace the scar beneath Vanessa’s hand.

“It’s not very pretty,” Vanessa says, staring up at the ceiling. Her throat works with her next swallow.

“It’s beautiful,” Charity says. “You’re beautiful.”

Vanessa sighs as Charity runs her fingers over the scar again, pulling Vanessa’s face down until their eyes meet.

“This the soft Charity people keep telling me about?”

“No. This is the Charity that thinks you’re totally amazing and brave and so, so wonderful.”

Vanessa wants to drown in those words and her body wants something that her brain can’t remember. Charity’s hands on her skin send tremors through her. Fiery tremors that turn to liquid heat inside her and Vanessa wants to bathe in it.

She wants it.

She wants her. Now. Tonight.

Her fingers drop back to Charity’s blouse, no longer playing with the buttons, but pulling them apart.

“Ness,” Charity husks. “I can’t, Ness. I — I’m sorry.”

Vanessa blinks, coming back to her senses. Well, some of them at least. “Why not?” she whispers. “Don’t you,” she can’t quite look at her anymore. “Do you not want to?”

“Oh, trust me, babe, I do. It’s not that . . . just not while you’re drunk, yeah. I want all your faculties working.” She strokes her fingers along Vanessa’s face. “I want you to remember.”

“And what if it never comes back,” Vanessa whispers suddenly. “What if this is all we have?”

“It will,” she says.

“How do you know?”

“Because I refuse to live without you. Now that I know what it is to be with you, I won’t.” Charity picks up her hand and kisses it. “We have a whole life together, Ness. And one day you’re going to remember that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who's read or commented on this story so far. It makes my heart happy to see that it's gotten so much love. I'll be the first to admit that I actually know very little about Emmerdale as a show, but I've fallen in love with this pairing and what's better in a soap than your typical amnesia trope? I did intend to make this very angsty, with pining looks and longing and things that hurt your heart, but those two just can't keep away from each other apparently, so . . . eh, I dunno. Lol. We'll see where this goes. :)


	8. Chapter 8

After a night of one too many pints, Vanessa wakes up in the back of the pub, tucked into the couch under a soft, grey comforter. She’s quite actually tucked in, almost like a cocoon, and Vanessa wonders if it was to keep her from rolling off the couch in her sleep. She’s too hot all of a sudden and kicks the comforter down towards her feet, squinting at the misty patch of colour that bleeds through the window towards her.

It’s the kind of bright yellow that makes her think the sun’s just come up and if that’s not the most horrid thought she’s had so far this morning, she doesn’t know what is. Movement in the kitchen draws her attention and she sees Noah’s blond head pop around the corner. He smiles a little, just a tug at the corner of his mouth, but it changes his entire demeanour.

“Mum told me not to wake you or I’d regret it for the rest of my life.” He grins then because apparently threatening the lives of her children is how Charity shows affection. Vanessa’s not surprised. Not surprised at all.

“Why you up so early?” she asks, rubbing at her eyes. Her hand comes away blackened and she wonders if she looks like a raccoon now. “Innit Saturday?”

“Footie practice,” he says, stuffing a piece of toast in his mouth.

“Oh, right. Okay.”

He moves the toast to one side of his mouth. “You don’t remember stuff like that, do you?”

“No. M’sorry, Noah.”

“It’s okay. Tea?”

“Yeah, actually. Thanks.”

He shrugs a bit, in that teenage way, and plugs in the kettle. “Mum also said to give you this if you woke up before she gets back.” He carries a glass of water across the room and puts it on the table next to her. “And these.”

A bottle of Advil joins it.

Vanessa smiles up at him. “You’re a right proper caretaker, you are.”

He shakes his head, eyes rolling in a way that is so reminiscent of Charity, it makes her grin. Before he leaves, he puts a mug next to her water. She doesn’t wonder how he knows how she takes her tea. It’s just another one of those moments where she realizes just how closely her and Charity’s lives have become entwined.

Noah waves goodbye, pulling the blinds before he leaves for practice.

She considers getting off the couch and facing the day and whatever drunken mistakes she’s made last night, but in the new darkness of the room, her eyes grow heavy again and she settles back into the cushions. When she awakes next, it’s to the jostle of the couch and for a moment she thinks she’s falling.

But then her senses catch up and she smells familiar perfume—orange blossoms and lily and perhaps even some vanilla. It shoots something through her. Something that feels like memory and desire.

She opens her eyes to the sight of Charity. She’s dressed up in one of those flowery blouses, with a black jacket. Her hair falls over her shoulders in soft waves and Vanessa itches to run her hands through them.

“You’re still here then?” Charity jokes.

“I told Noah to just leave me here to die. Hope you don’t mind.”

“No, I don’t mind at all actually. I’ve missed waking up and seeing your face, drooling on all of Chas’s expensive pillows.”

Vanessa nudges her arm. “Oi! Well, at least he was very sweet. Much more than you.”

“Should be. I paid him.”

“You did not!”

“I’m joking. He’s missed you too, you know.”

Vanessa’s smile is sappy. She can feel it in the crinkle near her cheeks.

“Aw, babes,” Charity strokes her hair away from her face.

There’s a flash of warmth and something else again, something in her mind that’s concealed in a haze of fog. It’s the first glimpse at a recollection that she’s had and Vanessa shoots up, almost sending Charity tumbling off the couch. She catches her hand, holding her wrist tightly.

“Ness?”

The moment is so familiar, so intense. It’s like deja vu. But it’s slipping and she can’t quite catch it.

Still, it’s the closest she’s been to something real.

Her stomach does somersaults and she finds herself grinning despite the pounding in her head and the scratchy dry ache that’s settled in her throat overnight. She pulls Charity close, into a hug. Let’s herself get lost in the feel of the other woman, the sweet scent of her shampoo, the soft warmth of her skin as cheek presses against cheek.

“Not that I’m complaining, babe.” Charity’s nose snuggles against her neck and Vanessa’s heart skips a beat. “But what’s this for?”

“I don’t know,” Vanessa says and she laughs. “I just had a feeling . . . or, something like that, I suppose. Something familiar and real.”

Charity pulls away, picks up her hand, and presses a kiss to her wrist. “A good feeling, I hope.”

“A very good feeling,” Vanessa agrees quickly.

“That makes me real happy.” 

“Me too.” Charity leans forward, eyes set on her lips, but Vanessa pulls away. “Haven’t brushed my teeth yet,” she says. “And it doesn’t taste too hot in there right now.”

“Well,” Charity says, leaning forward anyway and pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Maybe you should do something about that, yeah?”

Her lips travel across Vanessa’s face, to the underside of her jaw and down her neck. Vanessa falls back against the couch, pulling Charity down with her. Her entire body is alive, thrumming and beating as Charity nibbles along the skin at the bottom of her throat. The couch is too small for things like this and Vanessa loves it. She loves that Charity hovers over her, one leg wedged by her thigh, the other still supporting her on the floor. She loves the sweep of hair against her skin as Charity tosses her head to the side, her warm tongue darting out to sooth the place on her neck she’s been worrying over.

Vanessa gasps as Charity’s hand snakes beneath her jumper to squeeze her hip.

“Still got it, I guess,” Charity smiles.

“That’s not fair.”

“I know. I was supposed to be back at the bar ten minutes ago and now you’ve got me all hot and bothered.”

Vanessa moans. She doesn’t remember this part of their relationship exactly, but there’s a familiar intensity to the physical side of her and Charity. It’s like they’re pieces meant to fit.

Like they’re supposed to be together in this way.

There’s no reason Vanessa would feel like this if they weren’t.

“I should go,” she sighs. “Let you get back to work.”

“Or,” Charity says. “You could get cleaned up upstairs and I’ll have Marlon make you some lunch. And maybe Chas’ll let me have the afternoon off.”

“You think?”

“I’m not just a pretty face, love.” She winks. “I’ll make it happen.”

Forty minutes later, Vanessa is showered and dressed, sort of—she’s not hiking all the way back to Tug Gyhll right now, so she makes use of what she was wearing last night, and uses the brush in the bathroom to pull the knots from her hair.

There’s still two toothbrushes in the holder at the sink, hers bright yellow. Something pulls at her heartstrings, knowing that Charity’s kept everything just so. She may have run away to Tug Ghyll, leaving most things behind, but Charity clearly wasn’t going anywhere.

When she’s satisfied that she no longer looks or smells like a hangover, she makes her way back downstairs.

From behind the bar, Charity gives her a once over, very blatantly ogling for the sake of looking. It makes Vanessa feel good and giddy and oddly shy.

“Hey,” Charity whispers, beckoning her over with a finger.

Before Vanessa can reach the bar, Tracy bursts into the room, half in a panic.

“Vanessa! There you are,” she huffs, pushing through people to reach her. “You had us so worried last night. We were about to send out the search party when Charity texted me.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Vanessa squints. “I don’t remember a whole lot of last night.”

Tracy’s hand shoots out to trace something on Vanessa’s neck. “Oh, really?” she laughs.

Vanessa can feel the blush on her cheeks as she lifts her hand to cover the mark that’s slipped out above her shirt collar.

Charity looks on smugly from behind the bar.

Tracy cocks her head at her. “Could you try to be a little more discreet?”

“Why? She’s my fiancee. Besides, could’a been much worse if I wasn’t such a responsible pub owner. Didn’t want to leave all my loyal patrons out in the cold while we had a fumble on the couch, did I?” Charity looks mighty pleased with herself, hands on her hips, flashing a toothy grin.

“You, responsible?” Tracy says. “Since when?”

Vanessa’s flushed from head to toe. She’s been thinking about this ‘fumble’ since last night. Talk about hot and bothered.

“Well, far be it from me to interrupt you two reconnecting,” Tracy sighs, “but Paddy and Rhona were asking after you. Apparently, there’s some big emergency at one of the farms. Something about a cow and some wire fencing. So they need you to manage the surgery this afternoon.”

“Aw, too bad, babe. Guess our afternoon fumble will have to wait as well.” Charity grins. “Unless you want me to stop by the surgery in an hour. We’ve used Pearl’s desk before.”

“You are so bad,” Tracy hisses. “It’s a wonder she even wants to be seen with you.”

“That’s not all she wants from me.”

“Okay,” Vanessa says, grabbing her sister’s arm. “That’s about enough from the two of you. Let’s go. See you later, Charity.”

Charity winks at her. “You sure will, babe.”

* * *

“What was that all about?” Tracy demands as soon as they’ve stepped out of the Woolpack.

“What was what?” Vanessa sticks both hands in her pockets and makes a beeline for the surgery. Maybe if she just pushes on and keeps her head down, Tracy will stop yelling about her one-night stand, or really, lack thereof.

“Oh, you know,” Tracy exclaims dramatically, keeping pace. “Did something happen between you two? You know, something hot and heavy?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Well, yes actually. Why else am I chasing you down the street?”

Tracy pesters her all the way to the surgery, up the front steps, and into the front room. Thank the heavens Pearl isn’t there. The last thing she needs is that woman on her case as well.

“What’s going on?” Rhona asks as she steps out of the back room, looking between them with worry. “You alright, Ness?”

“Oh, she’s more than alright,” Tracy says. Her smirk is on the other side of annoying now.

Vanessa huffs, blowing the bangs from her eyes. “Tracy, for the love of—”

“She spent the night with Charity,” Tracy squeals.

Paddy steps out of the back room, looks between them, and turns right around, disappearing from the conversation. Vanessa wishes she could do that too.

“Not with Charity,” she clarifies before Rhona can ask her next question. “Just at Charity’s. I passed out on the couch, alone. Woke up on the couch, alone. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Um, excuse me, tell that to the hickey on your neck.”

Rhona gasps, catching Vanessa by the crook of her arm. With two fingers she tilts her neck and laughs. “I haven’t seen one like that since the two of you first started sneaking around.”

Vanessa waves her off. “Give over, both of you.”

“Aw, Ness, we’re only teasing. Whatever happened or didn’t, I’m just happy you’re feeling a little more like your old self.”

“Old self,” she mutters. “I wouldn’t know, would I.”

“Hey,” Rhona catches her hand, giving it a gentle and reassuring squeeze. “You once told me your heart beat a little faster when Charity walked in the room. That still true?”

Vanessa bites the inside of her cheek to contain the smile that’s pulling at her whole face. These little bits of her past delight her. These tangible little reminders of what she once had. It gives her hope that it’s not too far off.

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s still true.” She gives Rhona a little nudge with her hip. “Now both of you get out of here and leave me be. Paddy, you can stop hiding now!”

“I’m not,” he calls. “Just tidying up. Anyway,” he appears in the doorway to the backroom. “We best be off, Rhona, before that farmer has our heads.”

“Yeah, stuff’s in the car.”

“I’ll drive,” Paddy says, crossing the room, already wearing his wellies.

“I will drive,” Rhona says, snatching the keys from his hand. “We’ll never get there with you behind the wheel.”

They argue all the way out the door and down the path. Vanessa can still hear it until both car doors slam.

“And what about you then?” she says to Tracy. “Got somewhere else to be?”

“I don’t think so,” Tracy says, sitting on top of Pearl’s desk. “Maybe I’ll just stay and keep you company.”

“Don’t you dare. I’ll make them take you, it’s not too late. I’m sure they could use a hand traipsing through the fields and the cow muck.”

“No, thank you,” Tracy says, hopping off the desk. “I’ll go, but don’t forget, I know where you sleep.” She grins. “Most of the time.”

“Cheeky,” Vanessa whispers as Tracy pecks her on the side of the head and ducks out the door with a wave.

When it closes again, Vanessa takes a deep breath and lets it out. What a nosy bunch of friends she has. Was it like this the first time around too? Did they trot along behind her, interrogating her about everything to do with Charity Dingle?

She finds her lab coat and slips into it, disappearing into the back room to say hello to the animals they currently have at the surgery. There’s a kitten recovering from a spay and a pair of dogs that are being crated while their owner’s away on vacation.

She slips treats into the kennels because you can never have too many and she knows Paddy and Rhona are both stingy.

“Don’t forget I’m your favourite,” she whispers to the smaller of the pups, giving him a good rub behind the ear.

They’ve also got an assortment of small critters and a few reptiles that she glances at but leaves for Rhona to deal with. She’s not handing out the mealworms. She doesn’t care how much Paddy pays her. She never liked reptiles before the accident and, to no one's surprise, that’s one thing that hasn’t changed.

She spends the afternoon sorting files mostly. She has two walk-ins. The first is just an inquiry from a couple looking to buy a dog. She gives them some information about initial shots and a bunch of brochures. The second is a routine deworming on a small cat with black paws named Boots.

The little girl that comes in with the family stands on her tiptoes next to Vanessa, looking up over the counter. It warms her heart. She used to do exactly the same thing. Vanessa gives them both treats for being so well behaved. A lolly for the little girl and a few cat treats for Boots.

When they’re on their way, Vanessa turns the sign in the window to CLOSED.

She’s just made it across the room when the bell over the door chimes. It’s Charity.

“You almost done here?”

“Just locking up,” Vanessa says, eyeing the sign in the door. She glances back to Charity who’s looking at her funny, head tipped to the side. When they lock eyes, Charity grins.

“Don’t look so worried. I’m not here to ravage you on a table top. As cute as you are in your little lab coat.”

Vanessa looks down at the dark green fabric and wrinkles her nose. It’s covered in cat fur and some unidentified animal drool. At least, she hopes it’s only drool.

“Hey,” Charity says, catching her attention again, not that she ever lost it. There’s an uncertainty in her that Vanessa hasn’t seen since that day in their room, when she pulled her engagement ring off her finger. It’s heartbreaking and all Vanessa wants to do is wrap her arms around her. “I hope I didn’t upset you earlier. With that stuff I said in the pub. I tease you sometimes. Kind of the hallmark of our relationship. But I forget myself, especially now when I shouldn’t. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“No, it’s — it’s fine. I’m not upset.”

“You sure?” she asks.

“Absolutely,” Vanessa says, watching Charity take a few swaying steps towards her. Vanessa backs up into Pearl’s desk, bumping her hip.

“Cause you kind of have that look—oh, wait, babe.” Charity’s face lights up. “It’s turning you on, isn’t it?”

“Charity,” she sighs, turning away to mess with the files piled on the desk behind her.

Charity’s hand finds her hip, pressing up against her back, and Vanessa sparks to life at the touch. “That’s right. You’re not used to all my flirty banter,” Charity whispers against her ear. “Don’t know how to resist my feminine charms anymore.”

She turns Vanessa around and tugs on her lab coat a little, pulling them enticingly close. “I don’t wanna push you into anything, Ness. But if you’re up for it. If it’s something you really want. Then I’m not going to say no.”

“Charity—”

“Just say the word, Ness.”

Her chest heaves beneath her jumper. “I—I dunno what I’m doing.”

“That’s not true, babe. Not one bit.” Up close Charity’s eyes are like liquid gold and Vanessa could lose herself in them. “And lucky for you, I know well enough for both of us. But trust me, you’ll catch on real quick.”

Vanessa can feel Charity’s warm breath against her neck again, retracing the mark she left earlier. “Ask me to rock your world, babe. And I will.”

“Please,” Vanessa says, the sound crossed between a moan and a gasp. God help her, she hopes no one walks in right now.

“Please what?”

Vanessa looks up at her, on the verge of tears, but not because she’s sad. Overwhelmed maybe. Aroused? Definitely. The emotion bubbles up inside her, hot and heavy. Charity locks their fingers together and Vanessa gives her head a little shake. “I dunno.”

The corner of Charity’s mouth lifts, not in a tease or in jest, but with a genuine warmth that would make Vanessa agree to just about anything. “You want to come back to the pub and I’ll help you remember?”

All she does is nod.


	9. Chapter 9

Upstairs, naked in Charity’s—no, their bed—Vanessa can’t quite seem to catch her breath. Her hair is wild and twisted, caught between the pillows and blankets and something that looks like her shirt.

She doesn’t remember taking her hair down, but she imagines it happened somewhere between losing her clothes in the comforter.

There’s a warmth that’s settled over her, something ebbing from the inside, still making the edges of her mind hazy.

As far as she remembers, she’s never been with a woman like that, especially if she’s ignoring the gropes and fumbles of her youth. But then again, there’s an entire block of time that she can’t quite figure out, and according to Charity, they’ve gotten quite good at this. But even in the newness of this moment, there’s a familiarity there because it’s Charity. There’s warmth and want, but also a rhythm to the way they move and the sounds they make. Most of all, or maybe most importantly, there’s no awkwardness, the way Vanessa had feared.

Even if she can’t remember before, her body seems to know exactly what to do. Exactly how to move to feel good. Vanessa always thought of herself as a quick study, though she surprised even herself with how quickly she’d relearned Charity’s body: the things that make her moan and shake and loose herself.

Or perhaps it’s just been lingering between them for that long, the tension at a point where neither would take much to lose control. Vanessa lays her hand above her heart, finally feeling the beat slow and her breath coming easier.

“Not gunna run out on me this time?” Charity asks from between her thighs, lips pressed to pliant, still tingling skin.

“Did I do that?” Vanessa props her head up, watching charity crawl up her body, long blonde hair tickling a trail up her skin and over her breasts. It’s intoxicating, this feeling between them. She’s desperate for it already and dizzied by the memory of what’s just happened.

It’s almost too much, the hot swell of emotion in her chest, and she falls back against the pillow.

“Yeah,” Charity says, giving her a messy and wet kiss, “but I knew you’d be back, so it was okay.”

Their skin sticks together in places and Vanessa never wants to break apart. But after dragging her tongue through her mouth, Charity rolls over, collapsing beside Vanessa. She pushes the hair from her face, which is nicely flushed, Vanessa notes.

Turning to her side, Vanessa tucks her arm beneath her head to study the curves of a body that are so often hidden by clothes. Unable to resist, she drags her fingers along Charity’s waist, to the swell of her hip and back, watching the skin pucker at the sensation. “Was this—was this like the last first time?”

“Better,” Charity says. She shivers, catching Vanessa fingers and pulling them into a kiss.

“Why better?”

“Well, I didn’t love you yet, for starters. But I should’a known it was inevitable.” Charity swallows hard then, jaw working like there’s more. Vanessa thinks there’s always more where Charity’s concerned. More she’s not saying. Things she’s trying to protect them both from. The L word is one of them. It slips out sometimes. Casually. Like they’ve been saying it all along.

Which they have, she supposes.

But Vanessa can see the panic in her eyes now. Recognizes those little flinches in her cheeks. She’s so vulnerable in this moment and Vanessa knows that she has to tread in exactly the right places.

She struggles through the tangle of sheets to find Charity’s hand.

“Hey,” she says, waiting for Charity to look at her. “I may not remember up here yet, but this remembers.” She presses their joined hands to her heart, the beat echoing through their knuckles “I’m happier when I’m with you. We have fun. And everything makes more sense. Hurts less.”

Charity’s lips twist into a flirty kind of grin. “You sap.”

She draws Vanessa closer with a tug and kisses her. Kisses her until Vanessa has to break away, focusing through the fog in her brain. It’s a wonder she gets anything done if this is how Charity Dingle makes her feel all the time. Breathless. Weak. Not in control of herself.

“I mean it, Charity,” she says. She reaches out and strokes her hand over Charity’s cheek, tracing the line of her jaw, thumb brushing over her bottom lip.

“I know you do.”

“Good.” The intensity between them lifts a little, back into that place of flirty fun.

“So, did it live up to all your expectations?” Charity teases.

“I dunno,” Vanessa says. “You tell me.”

“Well, if the sounds are anything to go by.”

Vanessa snorts. “Between the two of us, I’ll be surprised if the entire pub hasn’t heard.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“At least the boys weren’t around.”

“I know. I planned this afternoon well, didn’t I? Even gave Chas the look over the top of the bar to forewarn Paddy before he comes anywhere near the pub. That man has a record going. I told him it’ll be something to think about when he’s bored and lonely.”

“You didn’t,” Vanessa says and she can feel the blood colour her cheeks.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. You were the one not wearing any knickers today,” Charity says, rolling back towards her.

“Didn’t have any here when I showered this morning, did I. Must all be at Tug Ghyll.”

“Could’a borrowed something of mine.”

Vanessa squints, looking at her through her lashes like that’s the most absurd thing Charity’s ever said. “Hate to break it to you, but none of what you own counts as underwear. Thread, maybe.”

“Checked, did you?” she asks, squeezing a spot on Vanessa’s waist that makes her squirm and yelp.

Vanessa tries to wriggle free, but Charity’s got her pinned and her lips are doing something highly distracting along her collar bones. “I might have,” Vanessa pants.

“You know, that drawer’s only been updated for you.”

“I did like a lot of what I saw.”

“I have good taste.”

“Agreed.”

Charity begins kissing her way down Vanessa’s torso, charting a different path from the one they’d explored previous. A more direct one.

Vanessa gasps as Charity’s lips dip between her thighs and her body seizes in anticipation.

“Relax, babe. We’re just getting started again.”

When Charity’s lips become her tongue, Vanessa feels her eyes roll back into her head. It doesn’t take long until she’s a trembling mess again, crying out some sort of gibberish that makes Charity chuckle against her skin.

Charity lingers though, dragging Vanessa through an onslaught of pleasure until her legs buck and she’s not sure who she is anymore. Eventually, Vanessa has to push her away, fingers caught in blonde hair. “Stop,” she whispers. “Oh, stop.”

Charity rolls over, a satisfied smirk curling lips.

“I dunno if I’ll be able to walk after that,” Vanessa gasps.

“That was kind of the point, babe. Now you’ll have no choice but to stay here in bed with me.”

“Could be worse places, I suppose.”

“Exactly. Just keep telling yourself that.”

“I will,” she promises, “until I don’t have to.”

Charity doesn’t respond, but makes a noise in the back of her throat. And if Vanessa thinks her eyes look a little glassier, she doesn’t say anything just then. Instead, she drags the blankets over them and kisses Charity in the shadows. She hasn’t felt more herself since the accident than in this very moment. She doesn’t know if it’s bringing her any closer to remembering what’s lost, but either way, she’s going to enjoy chasing it.

* * *

When they finally emerge to the chaos of the pub, many, many hours later, the afternoon has dwindled away and Chas is sending Charity meaningful but annoyed glances over her shoulder as she pulls half a dozen pints.

Charity slides behind the bar, watching Vanessa pick her way through the crowds, finally settling at a table with Rhona and Paddy. She’s got a vibrant, happy smile on her face. Something that makes Charity’s heart flutter just a little faster.

“So, I take it your afternoon off was a success?”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Charity whispers, taking up a few glasses to fill the remaining orders, clearing people away from the bar.

“Any life altering revelations?”

“I’m real good, babe,” Charity says. “But not that good.” She’s not gonna admit to it, but she was sort of hoping one good orgasm would jog Vanessa’s memory a bit. But hey, it was a fun afternoon.

Charity looks up again, at the tiny, blonde, rocket woman who’s stolen her heart, and knows it’s a lie. The afternoon wasn’t just fun. It was . . . relieving. She’d worried that if Vanessa couldn’t remember, she might not ever have those feelings about Charity again. And Charity doesn’t think she could exist in a world where Vanessa was no longer attracted to her, or in love with her, or couldn’t stand to be in the same room, never mind the same bed.

But that all disappeared today.

There’s a little voice now, in the back of her head. It tells her that everything will work out and even if they don’t get everything back, they can build a new life, shaped in the same likeness.

“Was it strange?” Chas asks. “Knowing her so well and yet . . . not?”

“No,” Charity says quietly. “It was perfect.”

Chas stops pouring her pint to study her. “You look right proper loved up.”

“And what if I am?”

“Just don’t go getting ahead of yourself, yeah?”

Charity shoves a full pint down the bar to a customer, turning back with a hand on her hip. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Chas says, hands up, “but I don’t want to see you get hurt, okay. I know you love Vanessa more than anything, but she’s still a little broken inside. So, just remember that, right?”

“There’s nothing to get ahead of.” Charity shakes her head. “It’s just us.”

“I know,” Chas whispers.

“What aren’t you saying?”

“I just—look, Paddy and Rhona were talking earlier—”

“Behind our back now, huh?”

“Not like that,” she grumbles at Charity. “We’re concerned for Ness is all.”

“Like I’m not?” Charity says. They’re close together now, their words heated and quick, but without the malice of an argument. More like urgency.

“Course you are. And you know she’s had a pretty easy go of it so far. I just think you need to be ready for when the memories start coming back.” Chas licks her lips and the pause makes Charity’s heart race. “Not all of them are going to be pretty.”


	10. Chapter 10

Vanessa is giddy as she leaves the Woolpack that night. It’s been hours since she’s touched Charity in those dark, secret ways and her blood still hums with the thrill of it. The kiss they share on the doorstep at the back of the pub as she says goodbye is filled with want and desire and rushing heat.

It scorches her and part of her is afraid of the burn. Afraid of the path it will leave, red and orange and alight, but she’s more afraid of what it means to be without it. Of what it would be to lose that warmth that grows and lives between them.

To awake one day and find nothing but shatters of ice.

Maybe it’s all this thought of fire, or the way her imagination runs away with her every time she thinks about Charity’s lips on her skin, but that night, tucked into her bed at Tug Gyhll, Vanessa dreams of flames. And not the heated, passion-filled flames of lust or love or even sex, but giant flames, burning and licking their way up the front of the Woolpack.

At first she thinks it’s a nightmare. When she pulls herself out of the dream, she’s bathed in sweat. It stains the edges of her shirt collar and wicks into the covers around her. She struggles with the sheets, moulded to her, strangling.

Suddenly she’s suffocating. And sobbing. It comes from nowhere it seems, but the dream isn’t just a dream because the flames don’t disappear in the familiarity of her room, but remain, finely detailed. She remembers something. Something from the void that’s been eluding her.

Fire at the Woolpack. Fear as the ground caught, hot sparks along the concrete. Hungry whispers up the wooden boards and brick base.

She can see it. Feel it. Hear it even.

She has her eyes pinched shut and her hands over her ears when Tracy comes in, turning on the lamp.

“Ness?” she says, voice heavy with sleep, wrapped in a pink terrycloth robe. Tracy is nothing but fabulous at all times, a trait she shares with Charity oddly enough. But the concern in her blue gaze gets Vanessa right in the gut and makes it all the worse.

There’s no context to the images, she only knows they’re supposed to be there. That they link to other, still foggy bits.

Tracy sits on the edge of her bed and pulls her hands from over her ears, and squeezes them, rocking gently, much like she does when she cares for Johnny. At some point the motion must lull her back to sleep because Vanessa wakes the next morning, alone, face tacky and fingers aching from being crushed in fists.

The second night it’s cold hard steel and pressure and the burn, not of flame, but of pain that wakes her. It feels the way she imagines poison would if it started beneath her skin. It’s different than any kind of pain she’s ever felt. Different because she knows, instinctively, that it’s a pain that rips and pulls and destroys leaving a destruction inside that seeps into places it shouldn’t.

This time the image is still distorted, but she can feel the difference between dreams and snippets of memory now. This one brings with it the suddenness of injury and the rancid smell of hot breath as she tangles too close to a dangerous body. The flash of an arm as it whips out. The feel of gravel beneath her hands as she crawls away on the ground. Blood. The matted stain of blood along her sweater, pulling the fibres together, rubbing into the fingertips of her hand.

It’s bad. She knows it’s bad. Somewhere along the edges she can hear Charity yelling her name, feel her phone drop from her ear, see the shift of blonde hair in the peripheral. Footsteps.

She’s alone and panicked, but not for her. She doesn’t remember why the terror belongs to something else, but she can’t shake it. Can’t get rid of it until Tracy rescues her from the dream that night, pulling her back to reality. This time she looks a little worse for the wear, her doe eyes rife with concern. Her hair is tugged into matching messy buns at the back of her head, but there’s a chaotic nature to her entire appearance that speaks of uneasy sleep and restless nights.

“Vanessa,” she whispers. “Tell me what it is, so I can help you.”

Her eyes water, but she holds onto the tears. Holds onto her hands instead. Vanessa loves her. Loves how strong Tracy is despite it all. But they’re the wrong hands she realizes. She wants Charity.

Only she can’t do that to her. They’ve just found their way to this good place. A place filled with hope for a future they both yearn for. And she was the one who ran in the first place. She left the pub and split up their family and handed her the engagement ring because she couldn’t wrap her head around things at first. Now, though . . . she can’t just march back in and demand that Charity fix this. Hold her. Comfort her while she desperately tries to shove the pieces of her mind back into the right places. She feels like a glass fishbowl that’s been shattered, pieced together again with glue, but still leaking. Still missing those pieces meant to stop the dam from breaking.

She’s a mess, she realizes, for the first time since the accident. Before, when there was only blank space, it might have been better, because now, in the middle of all that space, are shadows and darkness and cold snapshots of things she doesn’t want back. Things that scare her.

The third night she finds herself in Johnny’s room, sobbing into her sleeves, eyes puffed and shoulders shaking. It had been another nightmare. Johnny had been taken . . . a man, the same from the stabbing. Tracy’s told her the story before, but until now she didn’t have a picture to put with it. So, that’s all it was: some terrifying story, but a story that belonged to some other, unfortunate person. Now, though . . . now it’s hers again.

It’s the sound of wheels spinning out on gravel that gets her the most—that impossible moment of realiztion and the helpless divide that opened up in her gut as she watched her son disappear. And all she could do was sink into the fog of pain.

Tracy finds her there in the early morning and sinks down on the floor beside her. She holds her and rocks her, both of them wearing slippers and pajamas, and lets her cry.

“I’m sorry, Ness,” she whispers.

Vanessa doesn’t have any words just then. But she doesn’t show up to work for three days. She just stays in, keeps Johnny close, and tries to stop her hands from shaking.

* * *

When Charity sees Tracy come into the pub just before the lunch rush, she feels something skip in her gut. Her hair is wild and there are circles under her eyes, barely masked by the face of makeup. “You look a right state.”

“Shut up, you,” Tracy mumbles, pulling up a stool in front of her. She gestures for a pint and Charity pours her one.

“Hey, where’s Vanessa been?” She waits for Tracy to take a swig and swallow. “I mean, you sleep with a girl and expect her to call—”

“She’s had a rough couple ‘a nights.”

That dissolves the rest of her quippy remarks. “Oh?”

“Nightmares,” Tracy says, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. “About the stabbing, I figure. And Johnny being taken. I don’t think she’s slept in days and I feel so helpless,” she adds, plunking her head down on her hand where it’s propped up on the bar top.

“And why didn’t anyone tell me?” Charity asks, voice rising.

“She didn’t want us to,” Tracy says. “I think she’s . . . I don’t know, trying to protect us or something. She just said she didn’t want to mess anything up.”

Charity throws the towel tucked into her waist on the bar top and crosses around the counter.

Tracy straightens in her chair. “Where’re you going?”

“To see your sister, that’s where. You should’a told me right away.”

Tracy grabs her hand as she makes to pass, yanking so hard she almost comes off the stool. “Wait, Charity. It’s not something you can just wipe clean with a smirk and a joke. She’s in a right state.”

“I know that. I’m not an idiot, yeah. And contrary to what some of you think, I can be supportive.”

“That’s not what I think.”

“Then what’s with the look?”

Tracy sighs. “She asked me not to say anything and I promised. I just don’t want to go breaking things when she’s already this . . .”

“This what?”

“Broken,” Tracy finishes.

Charity licks her lips. “You know, people keep on saying that word and it’s really starting to bother me.”

“Maybe just give her some space then,” Tracy says. “To sort it out.”

“How much space? And how long is long enough?”

“I dunno,” Tracy says. “She just sorta got a handle on herself, you know. Stopped crying all the time. I mean, it’s good, you know, means something is coming back. Her memory. But it’s—”

“The wrong sort of something,” Charity finishes.

They look at each other, both of them helpless now. Both of them missing the Vanessa that’s lost in her own mind.

Charity grumbles, stalks back behind the bar, and pours herself a glass of something strong. She throws it back, enjoying the burn. She pours a second glass for Tracy and slides it across the bar. “This one’s on the house, yeah.”


	11. Chapter 11

Charity doesn’t have to wait as long as she thinks to see Vanessa, because, as it happens, Vanessa decides to pay the Woolpack a visit during the post-supper rush that night.

She looks like death when she comes in. Her eyes are dull, her face gaunt and drawn down, showing off her sharp jawline and the hollow spaces of her cheeks. There are deep purple circles beneath her eyes that almost make Charity wince. The entire thing is just sad and painful for them both.

Vanessa’s gaze flickers around the room in that tipsy, unsteady way and Charity wonders if she’s already been drinking. But there’s no cheery flush along her cheeks, so she thinks otherwise. This is the face of someone haunted by ghosts they can’t shake.

When Vanessa makes her way to the bar, Charity leans over, close enough to reach for her hands which Vanessa retreats from like some sort of skittish animal.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, babe, but you look like shit.”

Vanessa rolls her eyes but there’s a struggle there and the red burn of tears and shadows beneath her lashes. “Can I just get a pint?”

Charity gives her head a little shake. “Sorry, babe, but I’m not serving you.”

“What?” Her nose twitches in the middle of her face and Charity has to remind herself that it’s not cute. She’s trying for serious here.

“I talked to Tracy this morning.” She leans closer. “You don’t need alcohol, Vanessa. You need to sleep.”

“I don’t want to bloody well sleep, thank you very much. I am an adult capable of making my own decisions.”

There’s a tremble beneath the temper and Charity sighs. “Yeah, well, I’ve been doing some reading . . . and maybe you’re—hey, where d’you think you’re going?”

“I don’t need you to serve me,” Vanessa says, pushing off the bar top and marching towards the exits.

Charity chases her around the bar, catching her just as her hand reaches for the door. “Look, babe—”

Vanessa yanks her arm up. “Get off me.”

Charity slides between her and the exit. “Ness, just come back and sit down, yeah. I’ll have Marlon whip you up something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry. Just get out of my way, Charity.”

From the corner of her eye, Charity sees Rhona get to her feet, having spotted them.

“Ness,” Charity whispers, cognizant of the heads that are turning their way, “you look terrible. Let me help you.”

Vanessa spins away from her, head in her hands. “I just want to go home.”

“Vanessa?” Rhona says, a curious but wary smile on her face as she approaches. It’s the look Charity’s seen her wear with caged animals in the surgery. “How are you feeling, hun?”

There’s a moment of silence, then Vanessa pitches sideways.

“Whoa,” Rhona and Charity say together, both of them reaching out.

* * *

Rhona and Charity both reach for her and something flashes—Charity reaching out, catching her off guard, Vanessa toppling to the floor. The twinge in her wrist. The look of panic on Charity’s face. It’s quick, a blur almost, but it confuses her and she draws her hands to her head, palms buried against her eyes.

“Vanessa,” Rhona pleads. “Sit down with us?”

“Don’t touch me,” she says, yanking away from them both. Her hands tremble, unsteady, like her veins are filled with panicky, fluttering moths instead of blood. For a moment she feels detached, like her consciousness and her body don’t align properly.

She pitches again, stumbling on her feet, moving towards the bar and catching it against her ribs.

She winces.

“Vanessa,” Chas says, a hand touching her shoulder from the other side of the bar.

Vanessa recoils from it as well. Everything hurts right now. Everything burns. And she doesn’t need sympathy. She just needs to make it stop. “Don’t touch me!”

She needs to get out of here. Back to Johnny. Back to Tug Ghyll.

Somewhere quiet and safe.

But she’d run away from the quiet, hadn’t she? Run from the whispering in her head. From the dancing images behind her eyes. The ones that still fit nowhere.

Isn’t this what she’d wanted?

Charity?

To be in her arms. Isn’t that what she’d come searching for? Against all her better judgement. Against the pounding in her head that told her not to drag Charity into this mess. That it would change things between them. Shift the happiness they’d found again.

Vanessa couldn’t bear to scare her away. To let her see just how very broken she is. Because inside, in that dark, twisted space of forgotten time, is a feeling. Something that ties her tightly to Charity Dingle. It’s the only thing that makes sense when she closes her eyes and if it severs or snaps, if she does anything to cut it, she’ll fall.

She’ll fall and she won’t stop.

* * *

“Okay,” Charity says, her voice calm, finding a gentle cadence and rhythm. Something lulling. Something akin to the way she talks to the boys when they’re sleepy.

They’ve made a scene. It’s too late to undo all of that. But Chas, bless her, starts shooting looks at the crowd and they find their pints very interesting all of a sudden, that dull roar of the pub kicking back up as background noise.

Paddy moves to stand, to help in some way, but Rhona shakes her head at him and for a second Charity wants to laugh at how relieved he looks.

Vanessa scrubs at her face with her hands. “My head hurts.”

She sounds small, like a child, and in need of some sleep. Of someone else to tell her what to do. But she’s feisty. That hasn’t changed. And riled up when she’s drunk, which she might as well be for all the sleep she’s gotten over the past few days. Charity’s seen her like this once before. The night they ended up in the cellar together.

That’s not exactly the direction she thinks this is going, though, because this Vanessa is almost off her head delirious.

She leans heavily against the bar, clutching her head, shoulders sagging. There’s a tilt to her body like it can’t quite keep its shape or its form. Like her muscles are slowly letting go.

“Get her some water,” Charity says to Chas.

She practically shoves it in Vanessa's hand when Chas pushes the glass across the counter. “Drink,” she orders, glaring at Vanessa with a new intensity.

She’s not taking care of herself and after everything that’s happened, being dehydrated and sleep-deprived isn’t going to help anything.

Vanessa sips at the glass while Rhona rubs small circles against her shoulder.

And Charity stands there, arms crossed. All she wants to do is scoop Vanessa into her arms, but she can’t help her if she’s pushing away. Charity’s been in this place too many times to let Vanessa go there. That place of self-sabotage. That place where you think you can’t ask for help.

She’s intimately familiar with it. If not for Vanessa, she probably would have spiralled into a gloom when all the Bails stuff happened. She probably would have drowned herself in liquor and that would have been the end of it.

But Vanessa didn’t let her. Vanessa chased and fought and pushed back when all Charity did was push her away.

She’s a scrappy little thing.

But she’s hurting.

And it’s okay to hurt.

But Charity’s not going to let her drown under the weight of it. This space thing Tracy thinks is a good idea . . . yeah, well, it ends now.

“Vanessa, I want you to stay here tonight.”

“No,” she says. Her mouth sets in a twist. Her blue eyes crinkle. “I don’t need to be anyone’s pity project.”

“Goddammit, Vanessa,” she hisses under her breath. “I don’t pity you.” I love you. It’s there, on her tongue. But she swallows the words.

Still, Vanessa softens a degree, so maybe she hears it anyway. Maybe Charity isn’t as good at hiding things as she thinks.

“Come inside,” she tries again. “Please, babe.”

And this time Vanessa comes.

* * *

Charity manages to coax Vanessa upstairs, to their bedroom. She comes without many words, holding the wall like a lifeline.

Charity’s hands hover at her back, but they don’t touch her.

Vanessa’s in a weird headspace right now and Charity recognizes the creeping tremor in her shoulders—that flight or fight response at the ready. Poised and actioned to strike should she feel cornered. Should she feel the need to defend herself.

It’s a place Charity’s been in far too many times in her life not to recognize.

Inside their bedroom, Vanessa gives a little huff before kicking off her shoes and crawling on top of the comforter. She sits there, knees drawn to her chest, head propped on top and Charity’s heart aches for her.

She’s always had this larger than life image of Vanessa. For someone so tiny, she can be passionate and fierce and has never had a problem going head-to-head with Charity. It’s all these things that make her forget just how small and vulnerable she really is. For the last year, it seems that Vanessa’s done more than her fair share of the propping up. Whether it was with her and the trial or Tracy or Rhona, Vanessa always seems to be one of the support pillars.

Maybe it’s her own coping mechanism—her own way of taking control, of making herself heard and seen and part of something. Charity had been a first-hand witness of just how far Vanessa would go to protect the people she loves.

But right now, despite all that, Vanessa just looks small, with the hard gaze of someone that feels very much alone. Someone fighting an enemy they don’t recognize.

Well, she’s not going to put up with that anymore, she decides. So, Charity crawls onto the bed beside her and after some coaxing, Vanessa comes to her, all but collapsing into her arms. Charity rubs at the tremble that rushes through her, brushes her fingers through fine strands of blonde hair.

Vanessa’s fingers are tight at her back, clinging to her shirt like she might be ripped away at any moment. Charity recognizes defeat too. Recognizes the moment Vanessa gives herself over to her. The moment she throws caution to the wind and accepts whatever consequences might come of asking for help.

Charity’s also been in this place, but Vanessa has nothing to worry about because she’s going to hold her head above water. She’s going to be that anchor in the storm.

“Sleep, Ness.”

“No,” she whispers. “I can’t.”

Charity nods and kisses the top of Vanessa’s head, both of them rocking slightly. “You told me once to tell you if I was ever not okay,” Charity says, the words ghosting into Vanessa's hair. “And I want you to do the same, yeah. Don’t insult me by thinking I can’t handle it, Vanessa. Or that I don’t want it.”

Vanessa sits back, looking at Charity with eyes that reflect like glass.

“Ness, I want all of you. Even these crumbling, broken parts.”

“I’m not okay,” she breathes. “I’m so tired.”

“I know, babe, but I’m here.” She pulls her closer. Holds her tighter. “I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”


	12. Chapter 12

The first thing Vanessa notes when she wakes, caught in the slanted patches of light bleeding through the blinds, is the warmth of a body. She’s tucked against soft skin, chin to shoulder, long fingers splayed over her forearm and hip, securing her, holding her. She would think it would be uncomfortable, being joined like this, so closely, so intimately, but it isn’t.

In fact, it’s just right. Just the kind of contact she’s been craving without knowing. Or at least, without knowing why.

Charity breathes softly against her head, the air ruffling her hair and sending a shiver through her limbs. The kind of shiver that settles deep in her bones, waking the smallest of her nerves, setting them on fire with a heat that rolls through her, ebbing out from her bones and settling against her skin.

In sleep, Charity tucks her closer, tightening that hold and Vanessa basks in the security for a moment. Basks in the overwhelming feeling of being wanted. Of being loved. Despite everything, she knows there’s something incredible between them. Something hard-fought and won and cherished.

She knows Charity loves her.

She can feel it like a pulse, beating beside the love she has for her, the one that’s been there this entire time, just below the surface, just slightly out of reach. But now . . . Vanessa knows they’re supposed to be together.

Knows that her want and desire to be with Charity is founded in something strong and beautiful. Because despite the dark pictures in her head of fire and pain, she’s seen other snippets, things that almost feel like a dream, but that resonate too strongly to be a lie.

The snap of a mask against her face before her heart beats right out of her chest.

The way babe sounds so familiar. Whispered with such longing desire.

The way Moses grins up at her, shouting Ness, Ness, Ness until she responds like she’s supposedly done a hundred times before.

Noah’s gentle head shake, equal parts embarrassed and proud.

There are moments, tiny fleeting beats of memory that return that way. That take hold. She just has to piece them together. String together the puzzle that unfolds before her.

And maybe, in the middle of all this puzzle-making, she doesn’t have to push Charity away, hold her at a distance to protect her from the mess. Maybe Vanessa could want her and have her at the same time, despite the disaster in her head. Maybe that’s been the issue this whole time. She’s been trying to do this by herself. Been trying to shape the life she’s forgotten without the help of the people so intimately involved in that life.

And maybe it’s okay to be a little bit broken because she has people now, people that want to help hold her together. She doesn’t have to be perfect. She doesn’t have to be put together and flawless for people to love her. For people to want to know her or care about her. She doesn’t . . . Vanessa swallows hard. Not all people are her mother.

When her dad left all those years ago, things changed. Vanessa’s mother had pulled away. Had become this shell, this unfeeling person who only responded to the shinning image of perfection and flawlessness. To the daughter who got straight A’s. Who went to university. Who got a bunch of letters behind her name.

It had taken Vanessa a long time to break away from her mother. To understand that her worth wasn’t tied to working for her mother’s love or affection. But she’s obviously not shaken that need to exist as this perfect sunny image of herself. To be the light for everyone else, no matter how much of her is drowning.

Maybe she could with Charity. Maybe she already has.

But if she hasn’t, if she’s never told her about this Vanessa. This Vanessa that hides her darkness and pain and sadness behind a mask of smiles and giggles . . . maybe she’ll run. She’ll pull away, slowly at first, but then eventually enough that Vanessa’s alone again. Alone in a room full of people. And that’s the worst kind of loneliness she’s ever known.

Can she fall apart without the risk of losing them?

Will Charity still want her if she’s only pieces of herself?

“Good morning, you,” Charity whispers suddenly, her voice gravelly. She breathes deeply and Vanessa feels the rise and fall of it, her entire body moving with it.

Charity’s lips graze across her forehead and into her hair. Tears brim at the corners of her eyes and she blinks them away quickly, hiding the evidence of the pondering and wondering and worrying.

She’s not quick enough though, a tear dripping off the tip of her finger and onto Charity’s skin, rolling and disappearing beneath the sheet.

“Ness?”

Her throat is thick, dry and full of words that don’t fit. It catches her in a sob that she can’t quite get back.

Charity shifts to look at her, rolling onto her side a bit, until they’re face to face and Vanessa has nowhere to hide away.

“It’s a bit early for a cry, innit?” she says gently, more an invitation than anything.

Her brows pinch together in a mask of beautiful concern and Vanessa’s tempted to run her fingers along Charity’s forehead and the bridge of her nose. Distract herself in the creature before her. The one who’s chosen to share her life and home with Vanessa.

She sits up suddenly, stiff and quick, reality rushing back like a physical pain. “Johnny?”

How had she not thought about him until now? How had her job as a mother slipped her brain? This is what happens when she dwells on things from the past, things that still dig away at her, apparently, no matter how old she gets. Fears that cling to her, that make her desperate to hide her insecurities. The ones that give her the insufferable need to fix everyone else’s problems but her own.

It’s why she’s so good at being a friend and so terrible at acknowledging and fixing her own issues. She’s never let herself be broken before. Never let anyone else see the cracks that were really Vanessa Woodfield.

“Asleep down the hall, babe,” Charity’s hand falls against her arm, rubbing a comforting circle above her elbow. “Tracy brought him over late last night.”

Eyes glassy, she whispers, “Thank you,” while holding her trembling fingers against her lips.

Charity props herself up, the concern becoming worry, cracking her face into more pieces. This is what happens, Vanessa thinks. When she lets her broken pieces fall onto others, they crack along with her.

It makes her breathless, even now, thinking about herself as less than. As chipped or cracked or splintered. She can feel the panicked bubble expand in her chest, squeezing her lungs, making it harder to take in air.

“Vanessa?” Charity says. “What’s going on? I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

Vanessa studies her, the bright hazel eyes that want to know. That yearn for answers. That look at her in a way no one else ever has—with a devoted and unburdened love.

She’s so close to letting it all out. To letting those old wounds rip open, the war wounds of a girl who walked through a family full anger and hatred, who weathered those bullet holes and stitched herself back together.

Charity had told her last night that she wanted all of Vanessa. She had promised her that she could handle it. That she could hold her own against her imperfections. And Vanessa is so close to letting her.

Charity reaches across the bed, closing the divide, and takes her hand. “Don’t push me away, yeah? I know it’s hard. I know you don’t remember everything about us. And I know some of the things you do . . .” she gives a little shrug, “well, I know it’s not all pretty. But I love you, babe.” She shakes her head, retreating from something. “I’ve tried not to say it, tried not to put all that pressure on you. But you have to know, Ness. That I—”

“I love you too,” Vanessa says in a rush because she knows she does. She knows it in her bones and it’s not fair to hold onto it anymore. “Stupidly and completely.”

Charity gasps, just the smallest intake of breath, pulling her free hand to her lips. The other one squeezes Vanessa’s hand again, threading their fingers together. “You remember?”

“Some,” Vanessa says quietly. Her brows crinkle. “It’s coming back, just out of order and in bits.”

“But it’s coming,” Charity says and the relief in her voice almost breaks Vanessa. She’s thought about it, about the struggle that’s existed between them. About the hurt she caused by walking away all those weeks ago. But she hasn’t felt Charity’s pain until this moment. Hasn’t felt the dam she’s been holding onto.

Charity closes the divide, sliding her body across the bed to wrap around Vanessa. Her arms close across her back, face buried in the tangle of Vanessa’s hair. “Talk to me, Ness. I want to know what all your tears are for.”

“Later,” Vanessa says and it’s a promise. She’s not pushing it away, just waiting until she feels a little more steady. 

Charity pulls away and there’s a grin on her face. Wide and bright. Still caught up in a giddy relief.

Vanessa laughs, feeling absurd for it, but the giggle crawls up her throat and escapes before she can catch it.

Charity joins in, the laughter contagious and then they’re both laughing and crying and Vanessa shakes her head because maybe this is what real love is. To be able to laugh through all the pain. To come out the other side a little less alone.

Charity brushes her thumb under Vanessa’s eye.

“I probably look a right mess,” she says, pulling away a bit to rub at the black smudges down her cheeks.

“I don’t mind,” Charity whispers.

“Well, I do,” Vanessa says, scooting to the edge of the bed. “Some impression I’m making. I’ll just go get cleaned up, yeah. Before Johnny wakes up and thinks his Mum’s lost it completely.”

“You can lose it all you want,” Charity says. “Our secret.”

Vanessa looks back over her shoulder. No words will ever be able to thank Charity enough for it—for giving her permission to be unsteady—but she hopes Charity knows how much she appreciates it.

She stands then, too quickly though, straightening up before the blood has reached her head, and goes toppling back onto the bed. It surprises her, all happening before she’s realized, leaving her dizzy.

“Ness, whoa,” Charity’s hand falls between her shoulder blades, “slow down, yeah.”

“M’fine.” Vanessa turns and squeezes her hand. “Really, I am.” She rolls her shoulders. “I just need a good shower and to get my head on straight.”

Charity bites her lip, her hand trailing up and down Vanessa’s spine with a familiarity that she leans into. “Wouldn’t want some company, would you?”

Charity’s fingers slip under her shirt, nails brushing the small of her back. The tingles make Vanessa’s breath catch. It always amazes her how much she wants Charity. Beneath all the confusion and pain is a fire, constantly kindled, constantly burning for her.

“It doesn’t have to be anything,” Charity whispers. “I’ll just soap you up, make sure you don’t fall down and all that.”

As much as her words are whispered and warm and even playful, there’s seriousness when she suggests being there to make sure she doesn’t fall down and Vanessa’s heart flutters.

“You know,” Charity continues. “Conserve water. Save the planet. For the kids.”

Her lips press against the back of Vanessa’s neck.

“Well, I suppose,” Vanessa husks, “if it’s for the planet.”

“Course, babe. The planet and all that.”


	13. Chapter 13

Vanessa should have known the moment she stepped under the shower head with a naked Charity Dingle that things would escalate pretty quickly. And maybe the old her—pre-accident—would have. What surprises her the most, though, is finding that it’s her doing most of the escalating. That if she had left well enough alone, Charity would have kept her hands in perfectly safe territory.

Now though, with Vanessa pushed against the tile wall and Charity pressed behind her, hand between her thighs, all bets are off.

In fact, they don’t even exist anymore.

Only the heated stream of water between them and the puff of chilled air that fogs the tiles in front of her.

“Tell me if you need to stop, babe. Wouldn’t want you getting lightheaded on my account.”

“Don’t you dare,” Vanessa mutters, neck rolling to the side to give Charity better access. All Charity’s good intentions had been washed down the drain. But could Vanessa really blame herself? There was just something about the heated path of Charity’s hands on her skin that made her lose track of her senses.

“Bossy,” Charity whispers, kissing along her pulse point. Her free hand trails up Vanessa’s rib cage, nails brushing along the underside of her breast.

She bucks in response, her nerves on fire.

Then there's a knock at the bathroom door.

“Mum?”

It’s Noah. Vanessa bites her lip to contain the moan at the back of her throat as Charity works her fingers inside her, first one, then two, stroking and curling. Vanessa gasps as she arches, her stomach hitting the chill of the tiles in front of her.

Charity chuckles against her neck, then leans back towards the shower curtain.

“Yeah, babes?” she calls out to Noah.

“Uh, Johnny’s awake, yeah. He’s looking for Vanessa. Have you seen her?”

Charity snorts.

“Don’t stop,” Vanessa pleads in a whisper when Charity’s hand stutters, probably to focus on answering Noah’s question.

“Not sure, babes. Did you check downstairs with Chas?”

“Hmm . . .” There’s a pause from Noah and Vanessa’s toes curl, hands pressed against the wall tightly. Her jaw hurts from crushing her teeth together. “I’ll just keep him busy,” he says. Another pause. Then: “Morning, Ness.”

A sigh escapes her, part horror, part pleasure.

Charity laughs against her skin calling out thanks just as Vanessa’s eyes roll into the back of her head, her knees going weak beneath her as she jerks through an orgasm that catches her off guard.

Charity’s arm wraps around her middle, holding her in place as the water sluices over them both.

“Oh my God,” Vanessa breathes, turning in her arms, a fresh wave of pleasure igniting in her stomach as their skin presses together in all the right places.

“I know, right.” Charity smiles that cocky smile, sliding her thigh between Vanessa’s.

“Not that,” Vanessa replies, still winded. “He knows!”

“What? That we do it regularly? Babe, the whole bloody village knows that.”

Vanessa shakes her head, fingers splayed against her lips. This is probably the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to her.

“S’not the first time. He’ll get over it. But I might not if you don’t tell me how wonderful I am.” Charity’s fingers stroke over Vanessa’s belly button.

“And inflate your ego even more?”

“Does a girl some good to hear how amazing her skills are.”

“You already know you’re amazing.”

“Am I?”

“Yes,” Vanessa gasps as Charity’s hand skims down her thigh, replacing her leg. “Mmm, what are you doing?”

“Well, seeing as Noah’s got Johnny, might as well take our time now. Make sure you get the full Charity Dingle experience.”

Vanessa chuckles as Charity’s fingers squeeze her hip, but the sound quickly dissolves into a moan when both hands skim up her front to palm her breasts.

“Tell me what you want, Ness.”

She grabs Charity’s forearms, pulling them together. Closer. Skin slipping against skin. “Just you,” she says and then she kisses her. Soft but firm beneath the spray, until they’re both gasping for air and blinking to clear the water. “Don’t let me leave,” she says then, because leaving had been the biggest mistake of them all. Running away from Charity, from her life here, dragging Johnny away from this new family . . . it had all been wrong.

That’s why she doesn’t say don’t let me go because she knows no part of Charity had ever wanted her to go. This was all on her because she didn’t know any better. Didn’t know how to deal with it. So now she’s asking Charity to help keep her from making another stupid mistake. To keep her from ruining what they have together. So that even when it gets hard and she wants to run, she’ll have all the more reason to stay.

“You’re going nowhere, babe,” Charity promises, smiling into their next kiss, the heat of the water paling in comparison to the warmth that shifts between them. “Got to keep my eye on you, don’t I?”

“So, you don’t mind me and Johnny moving back in then?”

“Mind? Been hoping for it for weeks, Ness. S’not the same, is it? Lying in that bed all on my own.”

A smile curls the edge of Vanessa’s mouth. It’s still strange to hear it. To see and feel this tangible thing that exists between her and Charity. Yes, the memories are starting to come back, both good and bad. But there are parts of this relationship that she feels like she’s learning for the very first time.

“Is that all you miss? Me in your bed?” She leans away from the spray of water and Charity chases her lips.

“Our bed, by the way. And I can’t sleep without your freezing cold toes jammed under my back, now can I?”

Vanessa laughs and Charity follows the sound down the column of her throat, tongue dragging over her skin in a way that makes Vanessa groan. The wall is steamed behind her, the tiles slick against her skin.

Vanessa’s hands sink into the wet strands of Charity’s hair as she sinks down, lips dragging a slippery trail across Vanessa’s ribs and over her navel. Heat boils in her gut, desperate and wanting. Her legs tremble in anticipation.

“You can’t have missed my cold toes that much,” Vanessa says, trying to get some of her sense and reason back. It’s quickly melting away, sliding down the drain with the water that pours off them in rivulets.

“Wouldn’t say that,” Charity smiles, eyes batting up at her. She nips at Vanessa’s thigh and then soothes the mark with a kiss. “I’ve missed getting to warm you up.”

* * *

A cloud of steam pours out of the bathroom when they finally get themselves sorted long enough to leave it.

Vanessa’s fingertips are wrinkled from being in the water so long and Charity’s wearing the kind of smirk that stays in place for hours.

The world could quite literally fall apart and it still wouldn’t displace that look, Vanessa remembers that much. To be honest, it warms a part of her that she hadn’t realized was empty until now.

“Leave some water for the fish, did you?” Chas asks when they come downstairs. She looks between Charity and Vanessa. “Noah took the boys to the park.”

“How much did he charge you?” Charity asks.

“Don’t know. Told him to clear out your wallet.”

Charity rolls her eyes, bypassing Chas and going straight for the kettle.

Vanessa settles in at the table. When she sits, both Charity and Chas grin at each other. She supposes she’ll have to get used to moments like this. Those giddy instances where things just click back into place.

“So, what happened last night?” Chas asks, plopping down in the seat beside her.

Vanessa simply raises a brow at the question.

“Umm . . . you tried to throw down with Charity in the pub? Ringing any bells?”

Vanessa frowns. “What?”

Chas smirks, probably at the look of utter horror on her face. Vanessa can almost feel the colour draining from her skin—the heat leaving her cheeks. She knows she had a rough night, but she doesn’t remember that.

“She’s kidding, babe.” Charity makes a face at Chas before bringing over their brews. “You weren’t that bad.”

“That bad? Did I hurt you?”

“Gracious, no. Just looked like you wanted to fight the world,” Chas interrupts.

Vanessa looks between them, trying to gauge their reactions, but Charity’s wearing a slightly amused smirk while buttering her toast.

When she looks up, catching Vanessa’s eye, something in her gaze softens. “Got into the booze, babe. Probably would have fought the world if I let ya, but we talked you around and you came upstairs.”

“I’m sorry,” Vanessa says. “It’s been a long week. I think I was—”

Charity’s hand envelopes hers. “No apologies, babe. You’re bound to have some bad days as your memory sorts itself out.”

Vanessa feels the corner of her lips twitch. She looks down at her brew.

“Well, at any rate, I’m glad to see you looking brighter. And it’s nice to have you here in the morning again. We’ve missed you.”

“Ah, you’re going soft, Chas,” Charity says, touching her cousin on the shoulder as she makes her way to the fridge.

Before she can respond, there’s a knock on the door and Chas rises to answer it.

“Oh, hello,” she says, letting Frank and Tracy into the backroom. She waves over her shoulder at them. “I’ll be out here with the delivery since someone else can’t be bothered.”

“Make it up to you later, babe,” Charity calls after her.

Tracy has her funny smile on when she comes over. The one where her cheeks puff up and her lips sit oddly straight. Something’s wrong.

Vanessa looks between her dad and her sister. “Bit early for a social call, innit?”

“We just wanted to make sure you were alright after yesterday,” Tracy sighs. “Can’t blame us for that.” She takes Chas’ empty chair and shrugs her shoulder at Vanessa.

“I suppose.”

“Well, Frankie boy, you look oddly guilty, even for you,” Charity says over the top of her mug.

Frank shoots Charity a look that Vanessa catches. She turns to Tracy. “Alright, both of you, out with it. What’s going on?”

“Let me just start by saying that I had absolutely nothing to do with this,” Tracy says.

“Oh thanks for the support,” Frank mutters at her.

“You can’t pit sister against sister, Dad. It’s against the rules.”

Vanessa’s eyes narrow. “What’s going on?” she asks again.

“Well, here’s the thing—”

“Oh, just spit it out, Frank!” Charity sighs.

“Your mother called me.”

The room grows very still and very quiet. Even the clock on the wall seems to hesitate. Vanessa’s eyes feel like they’re about to bug out of her head. “Excuse me?”

“Look, Teeny—”

Vanessa shakes her head back and forth. She winces, feeling a headache start behind her eyes. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, you see,” Frank says. “I might have called her when you got hurt again.”

“You what?” Vanessa says, hearing the words dissolve in her mouth. They come out it broken bits, half-formed thoughts just echoing from behind her tongue.

“I mean, look, no one said anything to her after the stabbing and that was pretty bad.”

“No one said anything to her because she wouldn’t care either way!” Vanessa says, anger colouring her voice.

“Don’t say that. She cares about you, Vanessa.”

“And how would you know?” It’s a sharp jab, Vanessa knows it as soon as it leaves her mouth. To his credit, her dad barely winces, taking her barbs with a dignity she’d never have imagined of him before.

“Anyway,” Frank says. “When we found out how bad your memory loss was, I thought about how I’d want to know if the roles were reversed. I’d want someone to tell me my daughter was hurt, so I called her. In case she wanted to visit, or you know, at the time, we were coming up with any sort of thing that might jog your memory—”

“And you thought a visit from Mum would do it?”

“Well, not exactly. And she wasn’t home when I called. Just got the answering machine. So, I left a message. Guess she was away until now.”

Vanessa doesn’t even know what to say.

“Gave him a right earful, your Mum did,” Tracy cuts in. “Never seen him so pale. Can’t wait to see what happens when she actually gets here.”

“Wait, here,” Charity says, putting down her toast and folding her hands together. “As in the village?”

“She’s coming?” Vanessa whispers, mostly to herself. She’s scrambling for her phone suddenly, checking her pockets because she can’t remember where she put it, but she’s certain there have been no messages from her mother recently informing her of an imminent visit.

“Listen, Teeny, it’s not as bad you think.”

“Not as bad?” she almost screeches, finding her voice again. “She’s never so much as set foot in Emmerdale, not even to see Johnny, her own grandchild. And you know what, I made my peace with that. But now she wants to have a visit? Now she wants to come when my life is imploding around me?”

“Ness,” Charity says, catching her arm. “Calm down, yeah. It’ll be okay.”

Her nose twitches and her breath comes out in a huff as she stands and marches up to her father, one finger pressed to his chest. “You called her. You fix this.”

She storms across the room then, a panicked throbbing starting behind her eyes.

“You heard her, Frankie boy,” she hears Charity say. “Get on that phone, yeah?”

Vanessa pinches the bridge of her nose and bolts up the stairs. The last thing she needs right now is a visit from her mother. If the universe was really trying to do her in, she thinks, this might actually be how it happens.


	14. Chapter 14

She’s pacing—back and forth, back and forth—pretty well wearing a giant hole through the carpet. Might come crashing down right onto the sofa in the living room. Maybe right onto Paddy’s head. Wouldn’t that just be a hoot, Charity thinks.

She tempers her grin and the runaway thoughts, focusing on the tight pinch of Vanessa’s lips. She does that sometimes, when she’s bottling up.

Everyone thinks Ness is just this perpetually overflowing bottle of emotion, but that’s just another one of her tricks. A master trickster herself, it didn’t take Charity long to uncover this part of Vanessa. To peel away the layers until she could see exactly how this ticking clock worked.

The problem is that Vanessa doesn’t brood. She frowns and swallows and bottles. Making room for the smiles. Making room for the sunny temperament and bubbly glow that masks everything underneath.

But Charity’s gotten good at glimpsing what’s underneath. At least, she thinks so.

And right now, Vanessa is working very hard to smother the entire interaction that just happened downstairs.

Normally, Charity wouldn’t worry about something like this, knowing that Ness would find her later and things would spill from the bottle, until it’s empty enough to contain again.

Only this time, Charity’s not sure she will talk about it. Memory issues aside, Vanessa’s mum is a topic they’ve hardly brushed upon as a couple, and not for Charity’s lack of trying.

She knows there are old hurts there.

Things that have shaped Vanessa into the woman she is. Maybe things that made her close off certain parts of herself.

Like the part of her that had fallen for Charity in the first place.

“Hiya,” she whispers from the doorway. It’s taking all her resistance not to cross the room. Not to sweep Vanessa up into her arms.

She wants to desperately.

She’s always been better with actions than with words. With touch. She can say more with touch. Like this morning, in the shower. They’d been close. They’d been good.

Leave it to bloody Frank to go blowing it all apart.

“Ness,” Charity says, crossing the room and sitting on the edge of the bed. She taps the space beside her, beckoning Vanessa to it.

Vanessa doesn’t stop pacing immediately, but it’s that thing between them—that unspoken thing that draws them together. Charity uses it to her advantage, winding Vanessa in, bringing her into that bubble of space they exist in when it’s just the two of them.

It’s a safe place, scarred and battle-worn in places, but theirs entirely. It’s been patched countless times by now. The trial was rough, poking holes in it. Finding Ryan has left some tears in places that are still mending.

The stabbing sent fissures running straight from one side to the other. Things Charity never thought she’d be able to fix until the day she brought Ness home from the hospital.

And for a while, it was a lonely bubble, one Charity held together for them both.

Only now has Vanessa started to gravitate towards it again, taking the same comfort in that safe, indivisible space.

She comes to the bed, sinking down on it, arms drawn tightly around herself. Without hesitation, she falls into Charity, her nose pressed to the side of Charity’s neck, breath hot against her pulse point.

“You okay?”

“No . . .” Vanessa mumbles into her skin. Charity lives for the vibration, for that closeness, tilting her head to keep her there. “I don’t know.”

“S’alright, babe.”

“M’sorry.”

“For what? S’just family, innit?” She laughs and Vanessa pulls away. “If anyone knows how they can be, it’s me, yeah?”

Vanessa groans and flops down on her back.

Charity studies her, heart aching for her. She traces the exposed skin between the top of Vanessa’s jeans and where her jumper rides up with a gentle finger.

Goose-flesh trails behind it.

Vanessa pulls her lip between her teeth, eyes fluttering closed as Charity lies next to her, head propped on her hand.

“You never talk about your Mum,” she says gently, broaching the topic slowly. “We’ve never talked about it. Her.”

Vanessa shrugs. “Clearly nothing to talk about, is there.”

“I wouldn’t say that. Judging by your reaction downstairs, there’s a whole lot of something to talk about.”

Vanessa’s entire body stills. She can feel it like a wave of energy that courses across the bed. Charity’s been here too many times herself not to understand it. The moment before movement. Poised to run before it gets too hard.

Charity suspected they’d be wading into untouched territory. The things that built Vanessa from girlhood. These are the fires Vanessa walked through.

They’ve talked of other things. Difficult things. Of the relationship with Kirin. The odd love that had brought Johnny into this world and subsequently into Charity’s life. Of Rhona and drugs and what it is to love an addict.

They’ve had those kinds of conversations.

But this . . . Vanessa’s mum . . . it’s different.

It’s a hurt that hasn’t healed. One that still haunts her. And if Charity understands anything, it’s that, because the hurts that get buried in the past only dig deeper. The wounds never fully close, no matter what you stuff into them. Love. Family. Work. Even a bit of real happiness. It’s not enough to seal the hole.

Before she can make good on her instinct to flee, Charity presses her hand against Vanessa’s belly, holding her down, fitting her fingers beneath her jumper, until they’re pressed skin to skin.

It grounds them both.

Vanessa takes a shuddering breath in through her nose and stares at the ceiling. Tears well in her eyes.

“Babe,” Charity whispers.

Vanessa’s throat works. Charity leans towards her, nose brushing the space between her jaw. It’s a funny thing—love. Makes her want to do all sorts of daft things, like save Vanessa from this pain. From the hurt. She’d take it all if she could.

That’s how she knows this is real.

She’s never felt like this before. Every marriage had come and gone, fleeting and miserable in the end, with not one ounce of the feeling she has for Vanessa.

She feels invincible at her side. Like if Vanessa asked her to hold up the world, she wouldn’t have to think about it. She’d just do it.

And she’ll hold up their world, for however long Vanessa needs.

Vanessa dabs at her eyes then, bunching up the sleeves of her jumper in that way she does. “I don’t even know why I’m crying,” she says.

“Angry at your dad, maybe?”

“Yeah, must be,” she says in a small voice.

That’s not really it. Charity knows it goes so much deeper than that. So deep Vanessa might not even be able to recognize it anymore.

“You were always the emotional one,” Charity says, nuzzling her neck.

Vanessa snorts, the sound wet and soppy. Charity lifts her head enough to kiss away a stray tear on the edge of Vanessa’s jaw.

“You can talk about her, you know.” Charity moves away again, putting some space between them. Except for her hand. She leaves that pressed against Vanessa’s stomach.

“There’s nothing to say.”

Charity wonders how long Vanessa’s been telling herself that lie.

“I won’t push you,” she promises. “But I also won’t let you push me away. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, babe, but it’s kind of how we roll. All up in each other’s business.” Charity gives her an obvious once over. “All up in other things too.”

Vanessa’s eyes travel to the open door. “Charity,” she hisses, catching the hand that slithers beneath her waistband.

It tugs a smile from Vanessa. The teasing.

Charity’s good at this part. Making light where there’s only dark. It used to just be a defence mechanism. But with Vanessa, she can use her powers for good. Draw Vanessa out of her own head for a while. Even just a moment. Sometimes that’s all it takes for a little light to spill in through the cracks.

Because she sees Vanessa Woodfield, cracks and all, and she loves every bit of her with an intensity that would send Charity running if she wasn’t so desperately loved up.

“The boys,” Vanessa continues as Charity’s fingers draw circles along the line of her knickers.

“Are at the park, thanks to our Noah.” Charity has no intention of taking this any further. She does possess some self-control. She doesn’t turn down the attention when it comes from Vanessa though.

She lets her roll them over, until she’s straddling Charity, hands pressed into the mattress on either side of her head.

She looks at her, hurt, yet wanting, desire and pain warring in her gaze. It’s in the long sweep she does, bringing her hand down the side of Charity’s neck and over the swell of her breasts. It’s almost enough to make Charity gasp, to make her buck.

But she knows Vanessa isn’t after that. Not really. Just connection.

Vanessa blinks away some errant thought that furrows her brow. She’s fighting it. The feelings. Frank. Her mum. All of it.

She crashes forward and kisses Charity then. It’s open and wet, with a desperation that makes Charity’s chest ache for her. Tongues swirl against one another. Again, not for dominance, just connection.

She lets Vanessa kiss her. Lets her drag her tongue against Charity’s lips. Lets her graze her thumb over her jawline.

Lets her gasp in a breath that she steals right from Charity’s lungs.

That’s her undoing. That shared breath.

“She just . . . she can’t . . . I don’t understand why now,” Vanessa breathes back against Charity, tasting like her strawberry chapstick. “After everything . . . when I needed her—”

Vanessa frowns, almost to herself, sitting up, like she doesn’t understand what’s happening.

Charity follows her up, tipping Ness out of her lap and back against the pillows at the top of the bed.

Their legs are tangled and Charity strokes Vanessa’s thigh, running her nails along the fabric of her jeans.

“—it’s stupid, innit? I’m an adult now. I have my own child to take care of.”

“A whole brood of them, in fact,” Charity says, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. These things need to be said. The feelings need to come out. It’s the only way they can be mended.

“Exactly,” Vanessa says, nodding slowly. “So that’s . . . all in the past then.”

Her voice is thick again, trying to contain the feelings that have broken free of the cage she’s stuffed them into for years.

Charity’s very familiar with those kinds of cages. Her’s used to be bolted shut. Vanessa shot that all to hell though. With a deliberate tug, she wraps both hands around Vanessa’s waist and pulls her closer.

“Your pain isn’t less than, Ness. Just because it’s been a long time.” Charity catches Vanessa’s hand and brings it to her lips and kisses her knuckles. “You taught me that.”

It’s a poignant moment for Charity because she realizes exactly how far she’s come with this woman by her side. The Charity of old wouldn’t even recognize her.

“I know,” Vanessa agrees, because she’d never push aside something that has helped Charity overcome so much, but it’s evident that she’s struggling to take her own advice. “I do.”

“Then talk to me,” Charity whispers.

“I just—I guess . . .” she makes a disgruntled noise in the back of her throat. “Growing up, I—well, it always felt like she only wanted me at my best, you know? Dad hurt her so much when he left. Broke some part of her, I think. And she just stopped . . . caring.”

Charity nods, prodding Vanessa on with her silence.

“I’m not saying she didn’t look after me,” Vanessa says quickly, a deep line appearing between her brows. Charity reaches out to smooth it away. “She did,” Vanessa insists. “There was always food on the table and a place to sleep and I made something of myself, yeah. There just wasn’t any . . .”

“Love,” Charity whispers.

Vanessa swallows hard, her next breath a shudder. “Not really, I guess. Just me, always working so hard for her approval, hanging on to any scrap of affection I could find in her. Me always trying to make her feel better. And I was so terrified, so petrified that if I wasn’t enough, that if I didn’t do everything right, she would just forget about me.”

“Is that why you hid this part of yourself away from the world?” Charity asks.

“Which part?”

“This part,” she whispers against her throat, leaving a kiss behind.

“The gay part?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe,” Vanessa says and Charity detects an honesty there that Vanessa probably hasn’t ever admitted to until now. “That would have just been another divide between us, wouldn’t it?”

“So, she doesn’t know about us, I’m guessing.”

“She barely knows about Johnny. I couldn’t . . . I can’t—”

“Calm down, Ness,” Charity says, soothing her. Waiting for the panic to subside. “What are you afraid of?” she wonders. It breaks her heart to see this beautiful, smart, amazing woman still vying for her mother’s attention. Still afraid to be her self.

Could she really blame her though?

Isn’t that what she’d done with Ryan? Hadn’t she wanted to be everything for him? All of the best parts of herself and none of the bad?

All she wanted was for him to accept her.

But these parts that Vanessa is hiding aren’t bad. Charity doesn’t think there’s a bad bone in her body. Vanessa isn’t capable of it.

She does wonder how deep this hurt goes. That feeling of being unwanted—how far it’s penetrated.

Frank left. That was the first blow. Her mum pulled away—holding her daughter at an emotional distance. Kirin, however odd that relationship had been, had split, leaving her with a son to raise. And Rhona, well, Rhona had used her in the worst way. Took her heart and then strangled it.

Charity’s not surprised Vanessa has some deep-seated commitment issues.

Frankly, she’s surprised they’ve gotten this far without coming up against them.

She supposes that’s just another one of those things though. The impossible way they fit together. Filling those hollow, echoing holes left by other people.

“I’m going nowhere,” Charity says, feeling the need to tell her, especially now, when she’s already struggling with the pieces of who she is and what they mean to each other. It’s easy for Charity, as easy as breathing. But Vanessa’s still clawing those memories back. That undeniable faith in each other.

“Even if my Mum shows up and terrorizes the village?”

“Uh, babe, have you met me?”

“I’m serious, Charity.”

“So am I. And we do things like this together now, yeah? If your Mum puts so much as one toe out of line, she’ll have me to deal with.”

“How did I get so lucky?”

“I’m the lucky one, believe me. And you don’t have to be a bubbly ray of sunshine all the time. Especially now, yeah. You can be hurt and confused and unsteady. I’ll keep you upright. Help you string the lost bits together.” Her fingers brush Vanessa’s temple.

Vanessa’s hand reaches up to catch it, holding it tight and pulling it against her heart. Charity swears she can feel the beat, thudding against her skin.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

“You don’t need to earn anything from me, Ness. Approval or affection. You already have it all and bad days—bad weeks—won’t change that.”

“Why are you so good to me?”

“Lord knows I’ve thrown my fair share of bad days and nights at you. Bad months even and you never left. It got hard sometimes, I won’t lie. But at the end of it all, you were still there, either cheering me on or forcing me to get back up and face it. So you better believe I’ll do the same. I know something good when I’ve got it.”

“Even when I’m a right cow?”

“Especially then. Soppy and moody and all.”

Downstairs the door opens and Charity hears the thud of tiny feet pelt across the living room. Paddy groans, probably caught off guard by Moses. Johnny has much more sense about him. 

There are words had, between Noah and Chas. They drift, fuzzy, hovering in the kitchen for a while.

Charity waits for the voices and the footsteps to drift up the stairs. They don’t though, everyone giving them space.

It’s a testament to how badly they all want Vanessa back here.

In answer, Vanessa leans in next to Charity. “Time to face the world again,” she says.

“Sure you’re up for it?” Charity asks. “Probably three sweaty, hungry boys to contend with down there.”

Vanessa smiles one of those disarmingly bright smiles. The kind that usually leaves Charity a little breathless and light-headed.

“With you?” Vanessa whispers against her lips. “Always.”


End file.
